Exclusive | Drone Ranger: NYPD primed to start defending against hostile drones

The NYPD could deploy its first anti-drone defense system in time for major events in the city this summer, including the massive celebration of the country’s 250th birthday in New York Harbor, The Post has learned.Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced Feb.

10 that federal authorities are preparing to authorize the department to neutralize hostile drones operating in Big Apple airspace.President Trump is expected to give the final OK.For months now the city has been moving toward adopting anti-drone technology, as the NYPD has been in talks with American Robotics to purchase the Iron Drone Raider, which was first reported by The Post in June. The system uses “interceptor drones” that hunt hostile drones with radar and fire a lightweight mesh net to entangle the target’s rotors.

A parachute then brings the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle down. Now, the company has even more advanced cyber technology that can take control of the hostile drone and land it, to prevent any collateral damage that could occur if a drone crashed to the ground, said Eric Brock, CEO of Ondas Holdings Inc., which owns American Robotics. “We see the radio frequency and then we can, essentially, target that radio frequency and make that drone believe that we are the pilot,” Brock said.“So we override the encryption and basically steal the drone.” Brock declined to say whether Ondas had inked a deal with New York, but said the company has been “talking to security officials [at] both state and local as well as federal” levels. “I think that’s actually going to be a really attractive technology for the locations you’re looking at,” Brock said, explaining that cities like New York could “do a layered system” where the first line of defense would be taking over the drone and the second would be the “hard kill with … net interception.” It’s not clear how much the systems would run the city but the NYPD drones cost between $15,000 and $20,000 each, a law ...