How to Spot a Drone: Guidance From Experts in SIA’s Counter-UAS Working Group

In a recent blog post, the Security Industry Association (SIA) discussed key takeaways from a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on ways to safeguard the homeland from uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS), otherwise known as drones. Both lawmakers and the public have expressed great concern over recent incidents involving unknown drone sightings in New Jersey and across the United States.

There are steps that the public can take to determine whether an unidentified object flying above them is a drone or a crewed aircraft, and SIA’s Counter-UAS Working Group has put together some guidance on what to look for.

• Visual Cues: Often, an aircraft has two strobes, with a red light on the left wing and a green one on the right. Most commercial quadcopter drones have two red and two green. Checking on the unknown object with lowlight filtering binoculars should help to get a more detailed look.
• Flight Trackers: There are many commercial flight trackers available, as well as night sky guides, to determine if you should expect that the object flying above is a plane on an approved flight path, or the flickering lights can be explained as planets or stars in an especially clear night sky.
• Noise: Guidance from the Public Broadcasting System indicates that drones tend to be quieter and make higher-pitched buzzing noises than those coming from jet engines or propellers. If an object is flying close enough to get audible information, this can help determine what is flying overhead.

It is important to note that there are safe and readily available tools that can help law enforcement agencies distinguish between dangerous UAS and UAS flown by responsible operators. These tools include detection, tracking and identification technologies that can detect drones through the use of radar systems, radio frequency sensors, electro-optical/infrared sensors and advanced algorithms for pattern recognition and anomaly detection. SIA’s Counter-UAS Working Group has determined it is crucial that Congress pass expanded counter-UAS authorities so that local law enforcement and critical infrastructure operators have access to essential technologies to detect the presence of hostile uncrewed systems with enough time to take appropriate steps for public safety.