In recent years, cheap and easily available drones have shut down entire airports and even been used in assassination attempts on national leaders.

This has fired global interest in new and better ways to detect these tiny flying machines.

Now researchers from University of South Australia and Flinders University are reporting a marked improvement in detection ranges, thanks to an unlikely source: the hoverfly.

By painstakingly measuring and modeling the neurology of the hoverfly’s vision system, they’ve built an algorithm that extends detection ranges by up to 50 per cent, the researchers say.

The findings were published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
How do you map a hoverfly’s brain?

Very slowly, and with a very sharp electrode.

For well over a decade, Russell Brinkworth, an expert in autonomous systems at Flinders University, has been assembling a model of the hoverfly’s brain. But why the hoverfly?

“Flies are much smaller and less complicated than people,” he said.

“Also, flies are really good at flying. Flies are so good at flying, we call them flies. So if you want to know how to fly, looking at a fly for inspiration is a good idea.”

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-03-15/hoverfly-brains-mapped-to-detect-drones-acoustic-signals/100908106

> cheap and easily available drones have shut down entire airports

Well yes, so have balloons.

> even been used in assassination attempts on national leaders.

Those ones are neither cheap nor easily available.

“The early vision system of insects significantly enhances signal-to-noise ratios in complex, cluttered, and low-light (noisy) scenes. … By applying a model of the photoreceptor stage of the hoverfly vision system, it is shown that the acoustic patterns can be enhanced and noise greatly suppressed.

For computer vision, animal-based retinal processing could greatly enhance signal to noise processing. I’ve been a proponent of this for many years, even suggesting it to the European Space Agency, who took it seriously.

I haven’t heard of it being used in acoustics, though.

“Passive distributed acoustic sensor arrays have been used for detecting and tracking moving aircraft, ground vehicles, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Several array configurations have been explored, including the small aperture circular array, the L-shaped planar array, a tetrahedral array, and the widely distributed small arrays.”

Excellent, I want one for fault detection in cars. Like, where is that strange noise coming from?

The whole paper, https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/10.0009350 is well worth a read.

> even been used in assassination attempts on national leaders.

Those ones are neither cheap nor easily available.

I suppose it depends on how you attempt the assassination, using a Reaper drone it would be expensive and not something most people could do.

However some of the commercially available ones are pretty big and hefty and you could directly crash it into someone or rig it with a bomb.

Having a look this is the largest you can buy, it can carry up to 6kg enough for a bomb

https://www.dji.com/au/matrice600

I’d put these into a series of comparative cameras arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the airport and then link them to AI would would look for foreign objects.

Tau.Neutrino said:

I’d put these into a series of comparative cameras arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the airport and then link them to AI would would look for foreign objects.

I’ll try again.

I’d put these into a series of comparative cameras arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the airport and then link them to AI which would look for foreign objects.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

I’d put these into a series of comparative cameras arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the airport and then link them to AI would would look for foreign objects.

I’ll try again.

I’d put these into a series of comparative cameras arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the airport and then link them to AI which would look for foreign objects.

You get one more try before I start insulting you.

Witty Rejoinder said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

I’d put these into a series of comparative cameras arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the airport and then link them to AI would would look for foreign objects.

I’ll try again.

I’d put these into a series of comparative cameras arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the airport and then link them to AI which would look for foreign objects.

You get one more try before I start insulting you.

I know my grammar is terrible.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

I’d put these into a series of comparative cameras arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the airport and then link them to AI would would look for foreign objects.

I’ll try again.

I’d put these into a series of comparative cameras arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the airport and then link them to AI which would look for foreign objects.

It could look at infra red, UV and other bands for objects too.