Israel: As attack drones multiply, firms develop their defenses

Israel, one of the pioneers of drone warfare, is now on the front lines of an arms race to protect against attacks by the unmanned aircraft. A host of Israeli companies have developed defense systems they say can detect or destroy incoming drones. But obstacles remain, particularly when operating in crowded urban airspaces. Drones present unique challenges that set them apart from traditional airborne threats, such as missiles or warplanes. They can fly below standard military radar systems and use GPS technology to execute pinpoint attacks on sensitive targets for a fraction of the price of a fighter jet.

“Fighting these systems is really hard ... not just because you need to detect them, but you also need to detect them everywhere and all the time,” said Ulrike Franke, a policy fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations.

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'Swarms'

They can also be deployed in “swarms,” which can trick or elude conventional defense systems. Even small off-the-shelf drones can be turned into weapons by rigging them with explosives or simply crashing them in crowded areas. A series of drone strikes across the Middle East, including an attack on a Saudi oil field and processing plant that jolted international markets earlier this month, have underscored the devastating effectiveness of small unmanned attack aircraft. The drone attack on Saudi energy infrastructure knocked out about half of the kingdom’s oil supplies. Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels claimed the attack, but the U.S. has blamed Iran itself, which is a leading developer of drone technology and is locked in a bitter rivalry with both Saudi Arabia and Israel. Similar drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry by the Houthis a month earlier caused a “limited fire.”

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Israel warplanes struck

Elsewhere in the region, Israeli warplanes last month struck what Israel said was an Iranian-trained Hezbollah squad that was preparing to launch a group of drones toward Israel from Syria. A day later, Hezbollah said two Israeli drones crashed outside the group’s offices in Beirut. Israeli media said the drone strike had destroyed valuable equipment used to make guided missiles. Earlier this month, the Israeli military said an unmanned aircraft crossed into Israel from the Gaza Strip and dropped explosives on a military vehicle, causing minimal damage and no casualties. It was the second such attack from Gaza in the past year. These threats are not confined to the battlefield. London’s Gatwick Airport shut for parts of three days, stranding over 100,000 travelers ahead of Christmas last year, after drone sightings.

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Dominant of the drone business

Israel has long been a dominant player in the military drone export business, developing small attack aircraft as well as long-range spy planes. Now, Israeli firms are at the forefront of a global industry developing means to protect against the drone threat.

“There is a lot of knowledge that was adapted from the area of unmanned aerial vehicles, which is something that the military had to deal with for a long, long time,” said Ben Nassi, a researcher at Israel’s Ben Gurion University specializing in drone threats.

In a laboratory near Israel’s main international airport, Israel Aerospace Industries offered a glance at its new optical detection system: a black cube resembling a souped-up subwoofer that it says can spot a standard commercial drone from several miles (kilometers) away. The state-owned company says the Popstar system can track and identify flying objects day or night without being detected. Developers say the system, which has already been field-tested by the Israeli military, can differentiate threats from standard civilian aircraft with an advanced algorithm.

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