| NSF Org: |
IIS Division of Information & Intelligent Systems |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | September 14, 2017 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | September 14, 2017 |
| Award Number: | 1734206 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Ralph Wachter
rwachter@nsf.gov (703)292-8950 IIS Division of Information & Intelligent Systems CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2017 |
| End Date: | March 31, 2021 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $450,045.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $450,045.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
2200 W MAIN ST DURHAM NC US 27705-4640 (919)684-3030 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
2200 W. Main Street Suite 710 Durham NC US 27705-4010 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | NRI-National Robotics Initiati |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
With recent regulatory changes allowing for the commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles, aka drones, many new opportunities are emerging for public engagement, especially in areas like filming live music events, coverage of sporting events, and creating powerful imagery of landmarks or monuments. However, these technology advancements have also led to a proliferation of hobbyist drones. As a result, there are increasing reports of illegal drones flying in these same spaces, which present a risk to people on the ground or to those commercial drones legitimately flying in the spaces. Outdoor public space managers could benefit from design guidelines and technology recommendations for systems that could detect and potentially mitigate unwanted drone incursions into their spaces while protecting both people on the ground and legitimate drones. There is a need to explore passive approaches to drone detection and mitigation for public areas that attract small to medium sized crowds, particularly those approaches that are affordable and safe.
Through assembling a multidisciplinary team of engineers and landscape architects, Duke University and Clemson University researchers take a systems-theoretic approach to analyzing and addressing this problem. Such a problem is multidimensional with multiple stakeholders, including venue managers, the general public, and legitimate drone operators contracted by the venues for services. Involving critical stakeholders at all points in the process, a model of those variables that interrelate in the design of passive drone detection and mitigation systems will be developed, including operating environments, physical and cost constraints, and security and aesthetic considerations. Design prototypes will be built and tested. A set of formal guidelines and a design trade space that reflects costs and capabilities for a range of passive technologies will also be developed that can be used by designers and mangers of outdoor public spaces, who will be increasingly struggling with this problem.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Small unmanned aerial vehicles, otherwise known as drones, are expected to produce a global commercial market value in excess of US$43 billion by 2025. While this growth brings new economic opportunities, it also opens to door to illegal uses of drones. These have ranged from minor in the use of drones to watch outdoor concerts to major with the use of drones to drop weapons and cell phones into prison yards. Even in the most benign of circumstances, flying drones in possibly crowded venues poses many risks.
Drones flown illegally over outdoor public gatherings threaten the safety of the public as well as operations of those legitimate aircraft that support such events. Novice pilots of drones operating illegally in these settings increase the risk of either a crash into another legitimate drone or loss of control of the drone due to inexperience, potentially resulting in a crash with people or property. Incidents have already occurred involving drones at music events, sporting events, street markets and even at the White House. Moreover, the use of drones to drop contraband into prisons is increasing, with potentially grave consequences.
Given the rise of such issues, it has become critical for managers and designers of high-risk settings like public spaces and prisons to consider how drones could become a problem in such environments. Unlike major facilities such as airports with large budgets to develop defensive capabilities, these smaller venues have very limited budgets and staff to dedicate to protection. To address this problem, we developed a multidisciplinary collaboration to examine what interventions could be designed to support such high-risk venues in inhibiting pranksters and malicious users, including identifying cost-effective technologies with low operational overhead.
In this collaboration, we first assessed risk perceptions of both drone pilots and the general public in civilian uses of drones. These perceptions were then used to inform the design of a small, low-cost detector that fuses acoustic and radio frequency signals. Potential threats are communicated to relevant personnel through a smartphone application, which also allows users to provide feedback to underlying deep learning algorithms. Deterrent landscape architecting and camouflaging techniques were developed to make flying difficult for rogue drone operators, as well as to disguise the detection equipment. All these results then informed the development of a trade space for managers and designers of high-risk settings like public spaces and prisons who can use it to develop flexible and adaptable solutions for defending against rogue drones.
Last Modified: 04/01/2021
Modified by: Mary L Cummings
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