The unexpected came down from above. At the end of the 2013 German election campaign, Angela Merkel and leading figures from her party were on the podium at a Dresden public market when a drone whirred overhead. It suddenly lost height and crashed to the ground a few metres in front of the chancellor, who was visibly amused. The Pirate Party - for whom data protection and privacy are core values - claimed responsibility, saying they wanted Merkel to experience at first hand what it was like to be spied on by a drone.
A couple of entrepreneurs immediately saw a gap in the market. Ingo Seebach and Joerg Lamprecht posed the question: what if the drone had been carrying explosives rather than a camera? A few months later they set up their company Dedrone in the central city of Kassel, marketing the Drone Tracker, a device that identifies and tracks dubious flying objects. Dedrone's technology uses with a mix of different sensors to spy out incoming drones, using for example radar equipment, microphones, cameras and radio frequency detection. An alarm is sounded if an object is identified as a drone on the basis of a data bank.
Their system "shows live threats, real-time drone flight paths, and records forensic details including video evidence," according to their website. Anti-drone protection has long since emerged from being a niche business. The market is growing rapidly, according to Christian Jaeger of IT consultants ESG, based near Munich. The state-owned DFS, a company that runs air traffic control in Germany, estimated the number of drones in private and commercial use last year at around 600,000. That number could double by 2020 as prices fall and the technology becomes more widely available, DFS believes.
The boom means a rise in potential for abuse and even serious threats. Jaeger lists the scenarios: drones have been landing in increasing numbers inside prisons for some years now, carrying mobile phones, drugs or even weapons.
Airborne devices have carried drugs across national borders. Pilots around the world have reported potentially dangerous misses near airports. The military have experienced problems with unmanned flying objects when on missions abroad.
German carmaker Volkswagen recently ordered a drone tracking system from ESG to keep an eye on unidentified flying objects passing over its test tracks to film prototypes, in a clear attempt at industrial espionage. Terrorism is what is on everyone's mind, for example at political events where heads of state and government are meeting or at major rallies.
"But now we have something to counter this threat" Jaeger from EDS says. A recent trade fair in Nuremberg entitled Perimeter Protection revealed the extent of the interest in the security sector. Experts were attending from the industrial, transport, energy and leisure sectors to glean new developments in fencing, access control and video surveillance. For the first time drone identification and defence were given their own special area by the organizers. Marcel Ruf, the director of a modern prison in Lenzberg in the Swiss canton of Aargau, describes what happens next. If the surveillance system picks up a drone, staff in a control room can establish its position and direction of travel. Prison staff outside are then alerted to check whether the flying object is carrying cargo.
"If that is the case, the drone has to land somewhere. Then we move to secure it. Or we bring it down with a net gun as when one captures a small animal with a net," Ruf says. Capturing unmanned flying devices is a problematic procedure, and even more so is shooting them down, as people on the ground could be injured. ESG's Jaeger says the proportionality principle applies.
"When I'm at home and have set up the paddling pool for the children playing in the garden and the neighbour sends a drone over, I shouldn't shoot it down, but rather call the police." But the response changes with the circumstances. "If I'm at a political rally and Merkel is on the dais, the drone could be shot down, because that is proportional." "The current legal position in Germany is that the police and military can do this, but not civilians," Jaeger says.
A similar situation applies with jamming - the use of electronic interference to disrupt the radio signals between the pilot and their drone. Only the authorities tasked with security can do this, while private companies are prevented from doing so. Markus Piendl, responsible for security at Deutsche Telekom, says the company is calling for the law to be less restrictive on private companies, as long as public safety is not jeopardized.
Talks are under way with the government authorities. "Protecting 70,000 spectators in a football stadium or 10,000 at an entertainment event must not be obstructed by problems about who is responsible," Piendl says.
With the number of drones set to soar above a million within a couple of years in Germany, some see grave dangers ahead - but also financial opportunities for drone-chasers.
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