PRE2018 3 Group4

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0LAUK0 - 2018/2019 - Q3 - group 4

Group members

Name	Student ID
Jort de Bokx	1050214
Sander de Bruin	1006147
Stijn Derks	1008002
Martin de Quincey	1007047
Nick van de Waterlaat	1009357

Introduction

The goal of this wiki page is to show a study/analysis/design/prototype of a robotic subject. This research is an assignment of the course Robots Everywhere (0LAUK0). For this project, students work in a group of 5 choosing a subject in the core of robotics to work on, thereby making sure the USE aspects are leading.

Initial ideas

• Robotic surgery: With all the progress in robotics, we have now reached a stage in time where it is (almost) possible to let robots do surgery. There have been quite some recent breakthroughs, and it is also already applied to some scale in hospitals. However, there are some aspects to this robotic technology that need closer investigation.

• Medical rehabilitation with the help of robots: Many people suffer from injuries that may require long-term medical rehabilitation. This rehabilitation is typically complex and takes a lot of trained staff to help guide the patients through the process. Then there might be benefits for both the patients and the staff helping the patients with rehabilitation if robotics were to help the rehabilitation process.

• Drone interception: Between 19 and 21 December 2018, hundreds of flights were canceled at Gatwick Airport, following reports of drone sightings close to the runway. The airport did not have any measures to prevent this issue. Many users of airlines were stranded, and airlines (enterprises) lost. The airport only had detection and tracking devices, but no counter-drone mechanism. Just like birds, drones can cause enormous damage to aeroplane engines and are therefore illegal around airports. However, no^{[citation needed]} airport yet has a fully working anti-drone defence mechanism, while most airports do have anti-bird systems, consisting of noise mechanisms to scare birds away.

• Drone pesticides: An important consequence of the increased global population is the demand for food. In order to meet these demands, farmers require the use of pesticides to ensure enough yield from their crops. However, the overuse of pesticides and fertilizer can have huge negative impacts on society. Hence we the use of drones to analyse the state of farmland and automatically apply fertiliser and pesticides as needed could make a farmer’s job easier, making the production more eco-friendly.

• Trading bot: Trading bots have been used on the stock market for quite some time already, but ever after the boom of cryptocurrencies, the usage of these bots has become ever more increasing. The stakeholders of these bots are people that are active in, for example, the stock market and cryptocurrency market. People could use such a bot in order to achieve a passive income. It would be interesting to design such a bot for interested parties. Furthermore, it would be interesting to consider the ethical discussion regarding the permission to use such trading bots in the stock market.

• Networking AI: Gridlock is problematic in large western cities, but also many large cities with underdeveloped infrastructure in countries like Asia. It massively hinders any form of transport, and also unnecessarily increases pollution. Forms of AI in private cars or forms of public transport such as buses or trains might help reduce this problem. On an abstract level, buses or trains could adjust their schedule or route such that they are deployed at places where passengers are waiting in real time, not where they are expected to be waiting. This way, one might prevent the case where two half-full buses are driving on similar routes. By sharing information and adapting to real-time information, in this case only one bus would be necessary.

• Use drones to monitor and improve marine life: Due to climate change, many problems arise. A large part of these problems emerge in the seas and underwater. Examples include changes to the habitat of marine mammals, irreversible damage to coral reefs, and already endangered species being threatened quicker by their changing environment. A current use for them is flying through and capturing fluid samples of the exhaled fluids of whales, to monitor their health. Specific autonomous robots designed for underwater operation might help monitor the state of coral reefs, and introduce new coral to a reef to support its growth.

Chosen concept: Drone interception modified such that it can be applied in a more general setting.

Problem description

Between 19 and 21 December 2018, hundreds of flights were canceled at Gatwick Airport, following reports of drone sightings close to the runway. A total of 760 flights were disrupted on the 20th of December due to the drone. Naturally, this angered many people whose flight was delayed. Not only does it anger people, but it is also a financial worry for the airport organization as all of these people with delayed flights have to be compensated. The airport did not have any `good' measures to prevent this issue. Gatwick chief operating officer Chris Woodroofe said: `The police are looking for the operator and that is the way to disable the drone'. Woodroofe further elaborates that the police had not wanted to shoot the devices down because of the risk from stray bullets. This is, of course, not something that is to be repeated as this caused a lot of inconvenience for many travelers. The airport itself only had detection and tracking devices, but no real effective counter mechanisms available. This issue is not limited to the setting of airports, but it can be further extended to any hot spot, such as the centre of cities, special events that involve important figures, and more. With the ever-increasing possibilities of technology, it should in the future not be unexpected for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to suddenly show up and wreak havoc. This havoc can range from taking pictures of people in public places to spy or stalk them to terrorists that use UAVs to drop bombs in highly populated areas. These occurrences are more likely to appear as the technology we possess increases.

We think that we should not sit idle and passively wait for the worst-case scenarios to occur before starting to think about countermeasures. The recent incident between 19 and 21 December 2018 at Gatwick Airport should already sound an alarm that we should take an active attitude and develop mechanisms that counter UAVs in effective ways. These mechanisms should be able to deal with much more than mere birds and should consider any form of terrorism that can be caused through the airspace.

Objectives

State of the Art

Game of drones: defending against drone terrorism

This article discusses the threat of weaponized drone warfare. Not only are drones UAVs that may hinder people at places like for example airports, but they can also be equipped with weaponry, and this potentially makes them extremely dangerous. Weaponized drones could be used in terrorism as they are unmanned and can be operated from a distance, meaning that no people are put at risk. However, for this same reason, it can also be used for military purposes. On November 3, 2002, the era of weaponized drone warfare began when an American drone blasted a car with a missile, killing all six occupants. Since weaponized drones form such a threat to potentially innocent people, the article lays out the three challenges to defending against drone terrorism: detecting potentially hostile drones, identifying them, and destroying or neutralizing them.

The detection of drones could be done by using a radar detection system, where the location and height of a detected object in the air can be calculated. However, the key challenge of the radar system is to determine whether such a detected object is actually a drone. Furthermore, due to the way a radar detector works, a drone can be created using materials such that it will not be detected. Therefore, there is a need for a proper identification system to classify a detected object as a potentially dangerous drone. Identification of any specific aircraft, at present, relies upon broadcasting a coded signal, which is decoded by air traffic control towers. Such that allies and enemies can be identified and to avoid targeting a friendly aircraft. As a result, all aircraft where radar service is provided should require systems that are able to broadcast coded signals for identification. Once a drone has been detected and identified as potentially hostile, it needs to be neutralized. Drones can be shot down, have their guidance systems damaged, or their control signals can be jammed or interfered with. Air-to-air missiles and gunfire, lasers can be an effective weapon against drones. Lastly, electromagnetic attacks that consist of interfering with the GPS signals would make the drone uncontrollable to the pilot and using 'spoofing' could enable an attacker to take control of the drone.

Investigating Cost-effective RF-based Detection of Drones

The focus of the article is on the detection of a drone, such that it can be dealt with. More specifically, a drone detection system that autonomously detects and characterizes drones using radio frequency wireless signals. Where two approaches are proposed, both using inexpensive technology, e.g., WiFi and inexpensive software-defined radios, to automatically detect drones. One active method that detects drones by observing the reflected wireless signal, and a second passive method that listens to the communication between the drone and its controller. In the active method, a Wi-Fi receiver can be used to detect a drone based on the signature of the signal reflected from the propellers of a drone. Similar to a radar, a transmitter broadcasts signals and a receiver captures reflected signals that bounce of a drone. The passive method detects a drone by listening to the communication channel between the drone and its controller using a wireless receiver. Usually, drones communicate with their controllers a few times per second to update their status and to receive commands from the controller. A system could collect wireless samples and observes the signal, analyse them and can then detect a drone's presence.

Clash of the drones

The motivation for this article was the trouble at Gatwick Airport in London, where flights had to be diverted because a drone was spotted nearby. They stated that in the year 2017, in the UK alone, it has happened over 100 times that a drone was too close to an Airport. These events are undesirable, and thus authorities are trying to find reliable and safe strategies to take down these drones. They state that current countermeasures of taking out drones cause too much collateral damage. One option would be “Geo-fencing”, where drones would simply be fenced out due to software. However, this requires the manufacturers to implement this and the users to not tamper with this, which is considered too risky. The Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security even gave away $30.000 for the best idea to take out drones, so the desire for such technology is high.

Ideas were among others using other drones to take out the undesired drone. Other examples were using airguns to bring the drones to the ground, and training animals such as eagles to take down the drones. The consequences of drones on airports are catastrophic. Even a small drone could seriously damage the windshield of an airplane, so there need to be forbidden zones for drones to guarantee public safety.

Small Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (drones), Mid-Air Collision Study

The Department for Transport, the Military Aviation Authority and British Airline Pilots’ Association commissioned a study about what the consequences are of a collision mid-air between a manned aircraft and a drone. The goal of the study was to find the minimum speed at which such a collision would cause critical damage to the aircraft. An important note is that they only focused on windscreen collisions, and did not take, e.g. the motors into account. The main results of the study were that for aviation airplanes with windshields that were not birdstrike-certified, the damage done was critical at speeds well below the regular cruise speeds.

For airliners, their windscreens are much more resistant. For drones in the 1.2kg class, no critical damage occurred, but for drones in the 4kg class, damage did undoubtedly occur. Another interesting remark is also that how the drone was built has a significant influence on the damage done, for example, if the motors are covered in plastic or not. Their study also concluded that drones do much more damage than regular birds at equal speeds and with equal weight. This is due to the fact that birds act more like a fluid when colliding at such speeds, whereas the drones do not act like this due to their hard materials.

Drone Safety Risk: An assessment

This study, published by the Civil Aviation Authority, 2018, has investigated the likeliness of a collision between a drone and an airplane, as well as the consequent damage. In January 2018, there have been seven confirmed cases of a direct collision between a drone and a civil or military aircraft. Furthermore, they have estimated that the probability of a drone being in the proximity of an aircraft going at speeds high enough such that a collision could cause damage, is about 2 in a million. Furthermore, the probability of consequently causing critical damage is even lower than this probability.

They have also investigated the consequences of a drone colliding with a turbo-fat jet engine. They have concluded that a small drone would not do any significant damage. On top of that, even if it did damage, a multi-engine aircraft should still be able to land most likely. However, they also stated that helicopters are much more susceptible to drone collisions.

How do you catch a drone? With an even BIGGER drone and a giant net: Tokyo police reveal bizarre 'UAV catcher'

In this article, a new emerging technology is discussed to take out unwanted drones. They do not only discuss the technology but also report on the fact that this technology has been officially employed by police in Tokyo, Japan. The technology that they use is a drone with a net attached to it, making it able to catch the unwanted drones. The primary motivation for this deployment of technology was a security breach from 2015. A man called Yasuo Yamamoto controlled a drone that contained dangerous concentrations of radioactive cesium and landed it on the roof of the Japanese Prime Minister’s Official Residence. It managed to stay there undetected for 14 days after it was accidentally discovered during a tour around the building for new employees. The goal was to raise awareness to close all nuclear reactors in Japan.

The developed counter-drones will be used to find and capture malicious drones who fly dangerously close near public officials, in the fear of, e.g. a drone containing explosives. The deployment of these drones was part of a larger project of Japan in order to strengthen airspace security. Masahiro Kobayashi, an Osaka-based lawyer, mentioned that the biggest fear raised by experts is still the possibility of unmanned aircrafts coming too close to commercial airplanes.

The SkyWall 100 bazooka captures drones with a giant net

This article discusses a new type of technology in order to take unwanted drones out mid-air. In a nutshell, it is a bazooka which can shoot nets as far as 100 meters away. The bazooka is portable and can be operated by a single individual, meaning it is not a stationary weapon and can thus be moved from place to place. Important to note is that after the net is shot and the drone has been successfully shot, a parachute on top of the net is deployed to avoid any dangerously falling debris. The product is not meant for regular people, but the device is marketed to be deployed at sensitive events and near buildings such as an airport.

The bazooka is also equipped with an intelligent locking system to aid the controller to hit the drone successfully. They also announced the SkyWall 300, which is a remotely controlled mounted tripod with the same effect but with a further range. The SkyWall 100 was not yet available at the time of release, but nowadays it has been used multiple times, for instance at a Berlin air show in April 2018.

Project setup

Approach

We will now take a look at how we will approach this project. As is customary with open projects, we will start our approach by doing an extensive study into the current state of the problem. We will do this by studying literature of different forms. We will look at papers where this problem has been discussed before, but also at what the current solutions are at the moment and what their flaws are. Furthermore, we also look at studies and research of institutes that have made investigations into this phenomenon.

After we as a group have a good grasp on the problem, we will analyze the problem by ourselves from a USE (User, Society, Enterprise) point of view. These three components will be central in our study and development of our design, since the users always need to be the main focus. We develop a robot in order to aid the users, so this user-oriented point of view is essential in our opinion.

Planning

We now take a look at the planning of the project. The planning is presented in the form of an excel sheet that clearly states the tasks that need to be carried out, by whom these tasks will be carried out, an estimation of the time that it takes to carry this task out, if the task has been completed or not, and when it needs to be completed. Furthermore, an orange cell indicates that this will be done during a group meeting, and a blue cell indicates that this will be done outside of a meeting. Note that this planning also considers the division of work to a large degree.

Milestones

We now consider the milestones within the project. Here, we consider Table 1 that displays the accomplishments on a specific date. Furthermore, if there were any learning moments during each of these accomplishments, they will be written down and taken into consideration for the next accomplishment. Note that this table will be regularly updated throughout the course.

Table 1: Milestones

Date	Accomplishment	Learning moments
	Final decision of the subject
	Finalise literature study
	Finish everything regarding possible countermeasures
	Final decision of the `best' countermeasure
	Finish writing about all possible improvements that can still be made
	Finish making the presentation
	Finish doing the presentation
	Finish the Wiki page

Deliverables

We now cover the deliverables of this project. The deliverables focus on the problem introduced in the problem description. These deliverables for this project will be as follows:

• A presentation regarding the problem and possible solutions.

This presentation will be held in the final week of the course. In this presentation, we start by introducing a problem through a summary of the problem description. Then, the finding regarding the problem will be presented. This is followed by multiple solutions to the problem with their advantages and disadvantages. Then, we zoom into the `best' solution and provide a design regarding this solution. If possible, a demonstration will also be given.

• A Wiki page

This Wiki page contains an in-depth study regarding the problem introduced in the problem description. An extensive literature study will be presented, which offers multiple solutions with both their advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, it will be argued what solution would be the `best'. This is followed by areas that are still undiscovered and improvements that can be made to our design.

USE aspects

Users

Society

Enterprise

Conclusion

Discussion

References