Drones have a lot of potential in terms of exploration, photography, cinematography, but they also have a lot of potential to do bad things, like spy on others, deliver drugs and weapons, and so on, which is why regulators are still figuring out the best way to handle drones. In the US, firefighters were given permission to ground drones if they got in their way, but what about the rest of the world?
It seems that over in Japan, they have come up with a rather novel way of dealing with rogue drones and that is by using a net. No, there won’t be someone running around with a huge butterfly net, but rather a huge net will be attached to a drone operated by law enforcement officials. This drone will then fly after the rogue drone and net it, effectively catching and grounding it in the process, as you can see in the image above.
This follows a scare in April earlier this year when a drone carrying radioactive material was discovered on the roof of the prime minister’s office. The country’s law enforcement is expected to deploy one of these drones for testing this month, and a fleet of 10 is expected to go into operation next February in which these drones will be used to guard significant government buildings from similar “invasions”.