PRE2018 3 Group4

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0LAUK0 - 2018/2019 - Q3 - group 4

Group members

Name	Student ID	Major
Jort de Bokx	1050214	Software Science
Sander de Bruin	1006147	Software Science
Stijn Derks	1008002	Software Science
Martin de Quincey	1007047	Software Science and Applied Mathematics
Nick van de Waterlaat	1009357	Software Science

Introduction

The goal of this wiki page is to show a study/analysis/design/prototype of a robotic subject. This research is an assignment of the course Robots Everywhere (0LAUK0). For this project, students work in a group of 5 choosing a subject in the core of robotics to work on, thereby making sure the USE aspects are leading.

Initial ideas

We first present some initial ideas. These ideas can be found here.

General problem description

Between 19 and 21 December 2018, hundreds of flights were canceled at Gatwick Airport, following reports of drone sightings close to the runway. A total of 760 flights were disrupted on the 20th of December due to the drone. Naturally, this angered many people whose flight was delayed. Not only does it anger people, but it is also a financial worry for the airport organization as all of these people with delayed flights have to be compensated. The airport did not have any `good' measures to prevent this issue. Gatwick chief operating officer Chris Woodroofe said: `The police are looking for the operator and that is the way to disable the drone'. Woodroofe further elaborates that the police had not wanted to shoot the devices down because of the risk from stray bullets. This is, of course, not something that is to be repeated as this caused a lot of inconvenience for many travelers. The airport itself only had detection and tracking devices, but no real effective counter mechanisms available. This issue is not limited to the setting of airports, but it can be further extended to any hot spot, such as the centre of cities, special events that involve important figures, and more. With the ever-increasing possibilities of technology, it should in the future not be unexpected for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to suddenly show up and wreak havoc. This havoc can range from taking pictures of people in public places to spy or stalk them to terrorists that use UAVs to drop bombs in highly populated areas. These occurrences are more likely to appear as the technology we possess increases.

We think that we should not sit idle and passively wait for the worst-case scenarios to occur before starting to think about countermeasures. The recent incident between 19 and 21 December 2018 at Gatwick Airport should already sound an alarm that we should take an active attitude and develop mechanisms that counter UAVs in effective ways. These mechanisms should be able to deal with much more than mere birds and should consider any form of terrorism that can be caused through the airspace.

Objectives

Objectives of the project as a whole include:

• Gaining insight into accidents and incidents involving various forms of drones.
• Identify and specify the currently existing countermeasures and counter mechanisms against drones and UAVs in general.
• Identify and specify the USE stakeholders of the problem space and their interests regarding possible solutions.
• Propose multiple possible solutions to the problem.
• Identify the advantages and the disadvantages centred around user interests for each provided solution.
• Validate and verify that our proposed solutions solve the discussed problems with respect to the USE stakeholders and their interests.

State of the Art

We now consider the State of the Art regarding the general problem description. We take a look at numerous distinct papers and patents. The State of the Art can be found here.

Project setup

Approach

We now take a look at how we will approach this project. As is customary with open projects, we will start our approach by doing an extensive study into the current state of the problem. We will do this by studying the literature of different forms. We will look at papers where this problem has been discussed before, but also at what the current solutions are at the moment and what their flaws are. Furthermore, we also look at studies and research of institutes that have made investigations into this phenomenon.

After we as a group have a good grasp on the problem, we analyse the problem ourselves from a USE (User, Society, Enterprise) point of view. These three components will be central in our study and the development of our design as the users of the technology always need to be the main focus. Following this study into the USE aspects surrounding our problem space, we expect different categories of subproblems to arise. For example, when considering two distinct incidents involving UAVs, they might be categorized by the type of failure that occurred, be it human failure or technical failure. We expect that many of these distinctions can be made, and as different categories of subproblem might involve different USE aspects, they might require different solutions.

After this, we will provide possible solutions for a number of distinct problem categories. First, we set up a list of requirements and functionalities centred around the user. For each discussed problem category, we will then present multiple implementations of these requirements and functionalities, which will be our first drafts. These draft solutions will be further discussed and analyzed based on their advantages and disadvantages. We will also provide research into the feasibility of these proposed solutions.

As the discussed subproblems heavily integrate with various aspects of society, we are also interested in the ethical aspects of the evolution of the proposed technologies of counter-drones. We will investigate the ethical and regulatory consequences of these developments. We might also provide insight into which areas of the problem space have not been sufficiently discussed by previous research and falls outside the scope of ours. For future reference, we also look ahead and shortly discuss improvements or otherwise changes to our proposed solutions, that are not currently possible due to technical or other limitations. Finally, we will wrap up with completing the wiki and our documentation of the project.

Planning

We now take a look at the planning of the project. The planning is presented in the form of an excel sheet that clearly states the tasks that need to be carried out, by whom these tasks will be carried out, an estimation of the time that it takes to carry this task out, if the task has been completed or not, and when it needs to be completed. Furthermore, an orange cell indicates that this will be done during a group meeting, and a blue cell indicates that this will be done outside of a meeting. Note that this planning also considers the division of work to a large degree.

Milestones

We now consider the milestones within the project. Here, we consider Table 1 that displays the accomplishments on a specific date. Furthermore, if there were any learning moments during each of these accomplishments, they will be written down in the `Aditional notes' column and taken into consideration for the next accomplishment. Note that this table will be regularly updated throughout the course.

Table 1: Milestones

Date	Accomplishment	Additional notes
06/02/2019	Finalise the decision of the subject	N/A
	Finalise research into State of The Art
	Formulate analysis of problem space
	Formulate possible solutions to identified problems
	Formulate advantages and disadvantages of each solution
	Formulate possible further improvements
	Formulate conclusions regarding proposed solutions
	Create presentation format of our research
	Present complete research
	Finalise the Wiki and documentation

Deliverables

We now cover the deliverables of this project. The deliverables focus on the problem introduced in the problem description. These deliverables for this project will be as follows:

• A presentation regarding the problem and possible solutions.

This presentation will be held in the final week of the course. In this presentation, we start by introducing a problem through a summary of the problem description. Then, the finding regarding the problem will be presented. This is followed by multiple solutions to the problem with their advantages and disadvantages. Then, we zoom into the `best' solution and provide a design regarding this solution. If possible, a demonstration will also be given.

• A Wiki page in the form of a literature research

This Wiki page contains an in-depth study regarding the problem introduced in the problem description. An extensive literature study will be presented, which offers multiple solutions with both their advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, it will be argued what solution would be the `best'. This is followed by areas that are still undiscovered and improvements that can be made to our design.

Major USE aspects

In this section, we consider the users, society, and the enterprise around the general problem description.

Users

There are multiple stakeholders involved in a solution to the problem introduced in the problem description. By far the largest and most diverse category of stakeholders consists of those parties that are (majorly) disadvantaged by unauthorized or unwanted UAV operations, or malicious events that could follow. We can identify several subcategories of stakeholders whose material possessions or immaterial values are at stake.

The most important users are as follows:

• The Government

As the governing body, a collection of many large instances with national interests, the government of a nation aims to preserve the material and immaterial assets of its citizens. This goal might be obstructed by the unwanted presence of UAVs or events caused by them.

• Non-governmental organizations

Includes companies or other privately owned bodies that want to protect their material assets against damage from UAV incidents, or protect immaterial assets such as privacy or intellectual property that could be violated by unwanted presence of UAVs.

• Civilians or individuals in general

Civilians or individuals in general are also stakeholders in the problem space that we consider. They might have their assets violated in some way by UAVs or UAV related events, such as civilian espionage empowered by UAVs. Since drone flight is growing as a commercial pass-time, more specifically the operation of drones by civilians for fun is becoming more popular, this user group must also be considered as a stakeholder from this perspective.

Society

The society as a whole is affected by the already existing and upcoming dangers of drones. First of all, drones can be a huge hindrance at for example airports (Gatwick airport), football stadiums or other public places. However, apart from simple hindrance, drones can also be extremely dangerous for society, as they can be weaponized and used by terrorists, the military or any other person with bad intentions. Furthermore, more and more people are using drones privately, causing privacy issues for society, as these drones are equipped with a camera most of the times and can easily reach private places. This is why drone interception is so important to society. If there were to be a tool that could detect, identify and neutralize drones, this could help in a decrease of hostile drones and thereby also decrease the aforementioned dangers that drones bring to society.

Enterprise

Enterprise is greatly affected by the illegal use of drones, for example, the airlines at Gatwick lost a lot of revenue due to delayed flights and passenger compensation. The airport itself also suffered from the forced shutdown. Other industries are also threatened by drones, espionage via drones can be done remotely, where attackers may steal a company secrets through aerial photography or by taking pictures through windows. Hence the development of anti-drone will be of enormous benefit to existing enterprises but also spark new business opportunities for security contractors and UAV oriented startups.

Specific problem description

We now zoom into the problem and consider a specific context.

USE aspects

In this section, we consider the users, society, and enterprise when considering specific problem description.

Users

Society

Enterprise

Conclusion

Discussion

References