Friend-or-foe identification method

Unmanned aerial vehicles are being used more and more in industrial environments to accomplish production tasks. Although their use brings a lot of benefit, they also increase the risk of collisions with unauthorized drones that breach the territory of an enterprise. For protection against unauthorized drones, industrial facilities require effective UAV detection resources that employ friend-or-foe identification systems. This function helps distinguish authorized copters from unauthorized and potentially dangerous UAVs.

First of all, we should describe the different areas of civilian drone use. The growing use of drones in industrial facilities, logistics, and agriculture is a world-wide trend. Large-scale and small companies alike are actively implementing unmanned aerial vehicles to perform diverse tasks with varying levels of complexity. Among them, we can distinguish the following scopes of application described below:

• Transportation of goods. A prime example of UAV application is the company Amazon, which is actively using drones to deliver goods. A few years ago, they introduced the Prime Air concept, which is a service that uses drones to deliver packages. The company is still perfecting its system and is improving its customer service time all over the world.
• Monitoring and cultivating fields for agriculture. In Japan, the company Yanmar is using unmanned aerial vehicles to spray pesticides and disperse fertilizer. This reduces the volume of chemicals that are used and enhances the efficiency of crop cultivation. Similar practices are being implemented in Russia. For example, agricultural holdings are using drones to assess the condition of crops, identify hotbeds of disease, and distribute fertilizer and crop protection agents.
• Hard-to-reach and hazardous facilities. The Swiss company Flyability produces quadcopters for diagnosing and monitoring industrial facilities such as electric power stations, bridges, and oil depots. Russian energy companies are also actively implementing drones to inspect electrical power lines, pipelines, and other infrastructure objects.

Drones are being used to perform tasks in manufacturing, agriculture and the service industry not only in Russia, but all over the world. Drones are in high demand for ensuring security during large-scale events, festivals, and concerts. Unmanned aerial vehicles increase the efficiency and reliability of industrial processes, facilitate operations in difficult or hazardous conditions, and simplify logistics for delivery of goods.

Friend-or-foe technology, which identifies the particular owner or affiliation of drones, is based on the principle of identifying an object based on predefined attributes. This technology lets you distinguish authorized drones on your territory from drones that are unknown to your company and may be potentially hostile or unauthorized.

There are several technologies geared toward the identification of a quadcopter or other device and its precise location in a particular airspace. Radiolocation is used for these purposes. However, it does not always guarantee an exact identification of objects based on their type, model, or ID number.

For more precise identification, technological beacons are used:

• Hardware. These let you use an existing ground-based infrastructure of ADS-B receivers designed for civil aviation. They are installed on board certain models of state-of-the-art UAVs. However, they require certain modifications to the design of drones if these devices were not already included in the original development design.
• Software. Remote ID and Drone ID beacons are being actively used by foreign UAV manufacturers in the consumer segment. This technology has captured approximately 75–80% of the market and implies use of the standard Wi-Fi frequencies 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz. The radiobeacon functionality is embedded at the UAV autopilot programming level by manufacturers. Information is openly transmitted and is easily received by various devices, including mobile phones.

Both technologies are vulnerable to data substitution due to their use of unencrypted channels. However, global experience shows that DroneID technology is preferred for organizing UAV traffic at low altitudes of less than 0.5 km because no modifications to the design are needed and data is easily received from the UAV.

The data transfer format is easily changed and you can add encryption without making any hardware modifications to the particular drone. Instead, all you have to do is update the software that is used by the multicopter or other similar unit.

A crucial element of a friend-or-foe system is an up-to-date database of drones. It has to stay updated to prevent false alarms whenever new models or modifications of drones appear. You must mark your own units in a timely manner and integrate their information with your enterprise security systems for rapid notification and adoption of the necessary measures.

Apart from legal use of unmanned aerial vehicles, there is a growing problem with careless amateur use of drones that hinders the operations of enterprises.

The leading logistical services operator in Japan, Yamato Holdings, uses drones to deliver packages to hard-to-reach regions. During one of these delivery flights, a quadcopter was brought down by an unknown drone. This resulted in damage to the goods and caused the delivery process to shut down. An investigation determined that the unrecognized unit belonged to an amateur drone enthusiast who was engaging in their own recreational activities and neglected basic safety rules.

A similar situation occurred with Amazon in 2021. The company reported that their package delivery drone was damaged by another drone over Washington state. It turned out that the unit belonged to a local resident who was an avid enthusiast of remote piloting with drones. As a result of these incidents, Yamato and Amazon were both forced to revise their security protocols and enhance their UAV protection.

The Australian company Fluffy Farms specializes in precision agriculture. It uses unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor the condition of fields and distribute fertilizer. During one of these flights in 2020, a foreign UAV breached the monitored airspace of the farm and brought down their drone. This resulted in damage to agricultural machinery and delays in work that needed to be done. The illegally operated copter belonged to a local enthusiast who decided to "experiment" with the drone without considering the rules and consequences of their actions.

Unauthorized use of drones is also a current problem in Russia. In 2022, the major energy holding Rosseti encountered an incident in which their drone was disabled by an unknown foreign drone during an inspection of electrical power lines. The owner of the drone was attempting to film video of the line maintenance process without notifying the company about these plans. This interference led to damage to equipment and a forced shutdown of maintenance operations. As a result, Rosseti was forced to develop additional security measures and coordinate interaction with local authorities to prevent similar incidents.

These examples demonstrate the importance of implementing effective systems that employ friend-or-foe identification to protect legitimately used drones against unauthorized interference and accidents. By resolving this problem, enterprises can reap the full benefits of their unmanned aerial vehicles according to their particular scope of application.

Kaspersky Antidrone provides security for industrial enterprises and prevents unauthorized drones from breaching their territory.

In automated mode, the system does the following:

• Scans the airspace.
• Detects drones at a distance and categorizes them using neural networks;
• Displays all information in a unified, intuitive interface.

In case of danger and with the appropriate authorization, the operator can neutralize an unmanned aerial vehicle.

Kaspersky Antidrone is a modular system that is easily scalable, and is therefore applicable in facilities of any size. The solution functionality includes a friend-or-foe operating mode that allows an enterprise to securely use its own drones in industrial processes. This technology identifies all UAVs that appear in the system's zone of operation and determines whether they belong to the system owner or are unauthorized.

In addition to the software implementation of friend-or-foe technology, video detection and a neural network are also employed. These technologies enable the system to receive an image and identify any UAV, including home-made or improvised drones. These solutions are already being employed by large-scale enterprises managing critically important infrastructure objects that must be protected against any breaches by maliciously piloted drones.

The friend-or-foe identification system is an important element of state-of-the-art antidrone resources and ensures their effectiveness and precision. This technology lets you quickly and flawlessly identify unauthorized drones, block their control, and prevent airspace violations. These solutions are in high demand at facilities with elevated security requirements where they have already proven their reliability and practical value. As drones become even more widespread, the demand for advanced antidrone systems with friend-or-foe identification capabilities is only growing.