- The FBI wants to know if you make wired drones
- An official request for information has been issued.
- Drones connected by cables are more difficult to block and shoot down
If you have a drone that cannot be locked wirelessly, then the FBI wants to talk to you: the intelligence service has requested information (RFI) for said device and for any company that can provide it.
According to RFI (via DroneDJ), the key element here is fiber optic control. The drones you provide to the Office should use old-school wired technology that keeps them connected to a ground station and controller, rather than the wireless connectivity used by the best consumer drones.
As DroneDJ points out, drones in conflict zones are also shifting to wired operations, particularly in Ukraine: that means they can’t be jammed wirelessly, but must be shot down, which is harder to do.
The obvious downside is that a lot of wiring is needed to get any range on a wired drone, but these flying machines can now carry up to 50 miles of coil wiring, meaning they can still fly impressive distances.
‘Any size, class and capacity’
Unsurprisingly, the FBI is being somewhat cagey when it comes to saying what these wired drones could be used for. For now, the agency just wants to know which companies can potentially supply these tethered drones.
“Any size, class, and capability will be examined,” the FBI says, but drones submitted for consideration must comply with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), so they must pass relevant security checks.
The FBI says it uses drones (or unmanned aerial systems) in “a variety of facets while responding to and at the scene of various incidents.” Right now, it seems interested in purchasing new models that cannot be locked wirelessly, although of course they could still be disabled by cutting their cables.
The role of drone technology in warfare and law enforcement continues to expand: we recently saw a Chinese study describing how a fleet of thousands of drones could block access to a small country’s satellites.
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