If you're a drone pilot and want to fly your drone where you shouldn't, no one can now due to all sorts of legal complications with drones in flight and drone jammer devices stopping you. However, with the development of technology, countries have found new countermeasures.
Electronic warfare (EW) specialists at Northrop Grumman are at full speed producing common open-architecture RF jammers for infantry, land vehicles, and fixed sites to protect U.S. and allied warfighters from radio-controlled improvisation Explosive device (IED) attacks.
The FAA has no rules that explicitly allow police to jam or shield drones in flight, but unauthorized drones can create very real security concerns, whether it's smuggling items to jails or filming in safe locations. While something like a drone frequency jammer might help, jamming devices are still prohibited under FCC rules, meaning that jamming devices may not be legally available to regular consumers or even private security companies. That said, if regulations change and jamming devices become legal to use, it could be a useful tool to improve drone safety.
From a legal perspective, drone signal jammer appears to be in a gray area. Under the FCC, federal law prohibits the operation, marketing, or sale of any type of GPS jamming device, including devices that interfere with cellular and personal communication services (PCS), police radar, global positioning systems (GPS), and wireless network services (Wi-Fi ).
Officials with Naval Air Systems Command at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, asked Insitu to provide the Philippines with six ScanEagle drones, support equipment, training, field activation, technical services, and data. Insitu is a subsidiary of The Boeing Company.
You just need RF [radio frequency] components to transmit high-power signals in the right frequency band," Harrison said. "The jammers are readily available, you can buy drone jammers online. And we know that some of our adversaries have adopted fairly large and robust jamming systems as part of their force structure."
However, some states are proposing legislation, in California, that would allow firefighters and authorities to cancel drones if they interfere with emergencies like wildfires. Blocking access to airports, lingering on fire, and flying over highways could be seen as situations where these drones could be shot down. However, whether the use of radio jammers like drone jamming devices is officially allowed remains unclear.
