LONDON: Gatwick- New technology ‘could prevent airport drone chaos’

LONDON: Scientists believe they have
devised a system to prevent drones disrupting major airports.

Researchers
from the University of Cambridge say a combination of statistical techniques
and radar data makes it possible to forecast whether a drone intends to enter
restricted airspace.

Airports
can then focus their responses.

An
alert at Gatwick Airport in December 2018 saw about 1,000 flights disrupted.

Dr Bashar
Ahmad, who carried out the research at the University of Cambridge’s Department
of Engineering, said: “While we don’t fully know what happened at Gatwick,
the incident highlighted the potential risk drones can pose to the public if
they are misused, whether that’s done maliciously or completely innocently.

“It’s
crucial for future drone surveillance systems to have predictive capabilities
for revealing, as early as possible, a drone with malicious intent or anomalous
behaviour.”

No-one
has ever been prosecuted over the Gatwick incident, which saw the Christmas
plans of about 140,000 passengers being affected.