Drones are everywhere these days, including a lot of places they don’t belong. Over the past few months we’ve seen several attempts to to keep drones away from places like stadiums, airfields and government buildings.
Most of these, like Tokyo’s police interceptor drone and Michigan Tech’s ‘Robotic Falcon’ have focused on aerial combat, but the SkyWall 100 takes a different approach by launching a ground to air projectile aimed at snatching drones out of mid-air. It might be the coolest solution of them all.
The SkyWall 100 was developed by a team of English engineers and features a shoulder-mounted net cannon that weighs in at 22 pounds and runs on compressed air to send nets soaring after defiant drones occupying a 100-meter range.
The system uses a smart scope that automatically calibrates the drone’s vector and distance, telling the operator exactly where to aim for the kill shot.
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Upon pulling the trigger the SkyWall 100 can send a net the length of a football field in order to tangle the propellers of the offending drone before deploying a parachute and watching it drift gently to the ground.
No word on price or availability just yet but the first units are planned to be made available by the end of this year.
➤ SkyWall: SkyWall100 Drone Defence System [OpenWorks via Engadget]
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