Bosch Drone Patent: A Misguided Strategy?

From commercial delivery services to sophisticated military operations, drones have demonstrated immense potential. However, as demonstrated in Ukraine, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Yemen with adaptation, they also pose a growing security threat. In the hands of malicious actors, such as terrorists, insurgents, and rogue states, they have been used for terror and in many cases, they have demonstrated extreme lethality.

As drone technology advances, so too must our methods for defending against them. Bosch's recently patented defence drone, which proposes a low-power Electromagnetic jamming device to neutralise hostile drones, is yet another response to this evolving threat.

I hope to explain from an innovator point of view in simple terms the problematic issue of such a patent, and after reading the patent why I feel that Bosch’s method has not been approached with an understanding of the true problem they believe that they have a potential solution for. ?

The Patent Problem in Defense Technologies

Patents can play a crucial role in protecting intellectual property (IP), and convincing investors that the potential future value of an idea, exists, however when it comes to sensitive defence technologies, a patent can become a double-edged sword.

The very purpose of a patent is to publicly register and thus disclose the technical workings of an invention, allowing others to study and understand its mechanics so that they are aware that a method is registered and protected. This transparency, while beneficial for innovation in sectors like healthcare, consumer electronics, or a new efficient refrigerator, which is one item that Bosch are famous for, a patent can become a significant liability in the remit of novel defence technology.

When a company patents a defence technology, especially one as sensitive as a drone countermeasure, they inadvertently provide detailed blueprints for potential adversaries to exploit. In the case of Bosch’s low-power drone jammer, the patent reveals information, such as frequency spectrums, power output, and jamming methods / mechanisms. People with adequate know-how can use this data to bypass it. This means that before the system is even deployed, adversaries could already know how to circumvent its capabilities.

Moreover, the disclosure of operational details, such as detection ranges, reaction times, and the frequencies targeted by the jamming device essentially gives adversaries a playbook to work from. It allows them to pre-emptively design drones that can evade detection or withstand jamming attempts. In the context of national security, where staying ahead of adversaries is paramount, the public release of such sensitive information is not just a risk, its disclosed capabilities, removes the benefits of its operational existence.

The Appeal of Jamming

On the surface, the idea of using a low-power jamming device to disable enemy or rogue drones may seem appealing to the layman. Electronic jamming, which involves radiating interfering signals to disrupt the communication link between a drone and its operator, has long been a favored method of many multiples of counter-drone ideas. The Bosch patent proposes equipping an airborne drone, with a jamming device outputting between 5 and 25 W (Watts) of power, designed to target the common frequencies used by consumer and commercial drones, specifically, the 1.55 – 1.65 GHz, 2.3 – 2.5 GHz, 5.7 – 5.9 GHz and 433 MHz bands.

The rationale behind using low power is that it minimises the risk of interfering with other nearby communication systems, a legitimate concern in crowded or urban environments. However, this is where the first major flaw becomes apparent: low-power jamming is not effective against the advanced communication systems used in modern military and terrorist-operated drones.

Inadequate Power

While 25 W of jamming power might be sufficient to disrupt the signal of a commercially available leisure drone being flown by a hobbyist, it is woefully inadequate when dealing with more advanced drones or a drone moving at speed at a different altitude.

Many military-grade drones, as well as drones used by well-funded terrorist organizations, or rogue states are equipped with sophisticated communication systems that include frequency hopping and encryption technologies. Frequency hopping allows drones to rapidly switch between different communication channels, making it exceedingly difficult for low-power jammers to lock onto and disrupt their signals.

Even without such advanced communication systems, drones operating on less common frequencies, such as the 72 MHz band often used by model RC aircraft, would be largely immune to Bosch’s proposed jamming system. Drones using these frequencies can operate at greater distances with significantly less risk of disruption from a 25 W jammer. In short, the proposed jamming system may be able to hinder some basic, commercially available off the shelf drones if they are slow and loitering, but it would be ineffective against the very threats it is supposed to defend against, namely those posed by militarised or weaponised drones tooled by malevolent actors.

Threat Reaction Time

Time is of the essence in any defensive scenario, particularly when dealing with high-speed drones that can travel at velocities exceeding 60 mph (miles per hour) and those that are First person View (FPV) and can turn on a sixpence. Using the example of racing drones, which can be assembled from commercial off the shelf components or bought as kits and can reach speeds more than 200 mph, there is nothing to stop malevolent entities utilising these platforms for rapid, short-range attacks.

Bosch’s proposed system relies on a multi-step process:

First, the hostile drone must be detected and identified.

Second, a defence drone must be dispatched to intercept it.

Finally, the jamming device must be activated in the direction and close vicinity of the threat to have any effect.

This process without enough pre-warning and precision targeting, isn’t practical. By the time the defense drone reaches the hostile drone, the latter could have already completed its mission, especially in the case of pre-programmed drones that follow autonomous flight paths. Autonomous drones, which are increasingly prevalent in military, terrorist and rogue state applications, do not require constant real-time communication with an operator. They are programmed with a flight path in advance and can carry out their missions even in the absence of a permanently active communication link. This makes jamming efforts useless, as there is no signal to disrupt. The reliance on jamming as the primary means of disabling hostile drones also ignores the reality of modern drone warfare, where drones are increasingly being designed to evade or withstand such countermeasures. In combat scenarios, where the difference between neutralising a threat and catastrophic failure can be a matter of seconds, the inherent characteristics of this method of defence could prove fatal.

The Swarm Tactic Dilemma

One of the most significant developments in modern drone warfare is the use of swarm tactics, where multiple drones are launched simultaneously in a coordinated attack. Swarm tactics overwhelm traditional defense systems by presenting too many targets to neutralize at once. Bosch’s method, which as described by the patent is seemingly designed to have one defense drone handle one attack drone at a time, is fundamentally ill-equipped to deal with this type of threat.

In the event of a swarm attack this method would be overwhelmed almost instantly. Even a small swarm of five or six drones could easily bypass the system, as it would take far too long for the defense drones to neutralize each hostile UAS individually. This vulnerability makes the system impractical in the context of modern military operations, where drone swarms are increasingly being used by both state and non-state actors.

?Logistical Challenges and Cost Considerations

Deploying a fleet of defense drones equipped with jamming devices presents not only operational challenges but also significant financial and logistical burdens. These drones must be maintained, kept on constant standby, launched and operated by skilled personnel. Furthermore, each defence drone will have a very limited operational range and can only engage one target at a time means that multiple defence drones with housing and launch infrastructure would need to be deployed to protect large areas or critical infrastructure.

The cost of maintaining and operating this solution offers little value in return, particularly when weighed against their inherent concept of operational limitations in dealing with modern drone threats.

Collateral Damage and Legal Implications

While Bosch’s proposed method is supposedly designed to minimise interference with other devices, there is still a risk of collateral damage in urban or densely populated areas. Jamming signals, even at low power, can disrupt many modes of civilian and blue light service communication systems that use those frequency bands, GPS synchronisation signals for cellular and wireless ISPs, and even effect sensors on critical infrastructure.

In most countries, the use of jammers is highly regulated and in certain locations prohibited under defence and national security legislation, which makes it prohibitive and problematic for even law enforcement to use them.

In urban environments, where communication networks are already congested, the unintended consequences of airborne jamming could be severe, potentially leading to legal challenges by wireless service providers under the remit of service level penalties and of course where 911 type operations are disturbed, public safety risks.

Final Thoughts

Bosch is an amazing and deeply respected company; that said, this is seemingly an already obsolete method at the point of publication. This isn’t a reflection of Bosch the patent applicant, but more so to highlight the pace and evolution in this area of methods that enable drone attack capabilities. This is a fluid area of engineering and science that requires an almost daily refreshment of knowledge, and a system engineering awareness that outpaces the bad guys.

The people I work with and those few innovators I share ideas with are the defenders of tomorrow.

We look at the evolution of technology daily and we work to anticipate the reality of the potential threat several months and possibly a year or two away. In this area of next generation defense if you believe you can work on the news of an emerging threat highlighted today, then you’re already too late. Unless people are tasked about thinking about the most despicable and evil way an adversary or terrorist could manipulate a technology to cause carnage and then work out a plan to defeat or mitigate the effectiveness of that method, then they have no business in this line of business. As for telling the bad guys how you're going to stop them, especially via a patent is counterintuitive at best.

Carl Cagliarini

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