Australian Police Down Rogue Drone at Gold Coast Games

A major Australian counter-drone company has announced a win in the war against rogue drone flights after police used an anti-UAS “gun” to down an errant flight over a major sporting event.

The Queensland Police Service used DroneShield’s DroneGun during the recent XXI Commonwealth Games in Brisbane to neutralize a quadcopter breaching an aerial exclusion zone.

DroneGun discharges radio signals that can take control of a rogue drone, bringing the UAV to the gun user and disabling video capabilities.

The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games welcomes more than 6,600 athletes and team officials from 71 Commonwealth nations and territories to the Gold Coast and event cities Brisbane, Cairns and Townsville.

The largest sporting event to be staged in Australia this decade, the Games feature a large integrated sports program comprising 18 sports and seven para-sports.

“Much of the use of our products is not publicly-known. Security and military agencies rarely comment on deployments and specific incidents. We are proud to have secured the skies for the public at the Games, as is evident from this incident which became public,” DroneShield CEO Oleg Vornik said.

According to MYGC.com, the drone pilot will be referred to Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

“I have to reinforce that there is currently no specific threat against the Games or against anything in Queensland,” Deputy Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski told reporters.

“But, of course, we live in a probable threat environment, so we have to be prepared for the unexpected.”

DroneShield also deployed its products at the XXIII Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.

DroneShield’s other solutions include DroneSentinel and DroneSentry. DroneSentinel is a multi-prone detection product designed to locate rogue drones. DroneSentry detects and neutralizes unmanned aerial bandits using jamming technology. In November, DroneShield demonstrated both products for governmental end-users at its Virginia office.

Currently, DroneShield provides detection coverage for the Boston Marathon. The company also scored a major European victory last year, protecting the Davos Economic Forum in Switzerland.

A recent study predicts the drone mitigation (or anti-drone) market will to grow to a billion-dollar industry within six years with predicted compound annual growth rate of 23.89 percent across 2017-22.