Radio jamming systems apparently thwarted an attempted presidential assassination with improvised drone bombs in Venezuela.
On Saturday 4th August, President Nicolas Maduro鈥檚 speech at an outdoor rally was interrupted by two explosions. Seven soldiers on parade were injured, three critically.
Others scattered while bodyguards rushed to protect the president with bulletproof shields. Witnesses reported seeing two multicopter drones which crashed into a nearby apartment building and exploded.
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Interior and Justice Minister Nestor Reverol announced later on television that the attack was carried out with two DJI Matrice 600 drones, a type widely used for filming which are larger professional versions of the firm鈥檚 popular consumer drones.
Silent protection
Reverol stated that each of the drones had been carrying a kilo of C-4 military explosive, and that 鈥渟ignal-inhibiting equipment鈥� caused one fall short of their target, and the other had crashed. In other words, it was probably a jammer of some kind.
Drone jammers are widely used to protect public events, such as this summer鈥檚 World Cup, from drone intrusions.聽 They block the signal between the operator and the drone, or the drone鈥檚 GPS navigation, or both. Consumer drones will generally return to the launch point if the control signal is lost, or land if navigation is lost.
In addition to flight restrictions around airports and military installations, , suggesting an awareness of the potential for drone attacks.
Experts have been predicting political drone assassinations for some time. Protesters crashed an unarmed drone . ISIS made extensive use of consumer drones dropping grenades during the battles for Mosul and Raqqa in 2017, and this July a multicopter with two grenades taped to it crashed into a property belonging to a
Who to blame?
President Maduro blamed far-right Venezuelan groups helped by groups in Colombia and Miami for the attack. 聽American National Security Advisor John Bolton stated there was no US involvement, but suggested it might be 鈥渁 pretext set up by the Maduro regime itself.鈥�
This highlights the challenges of attributing responsibility when drone hardware can be acquired by anyone. 聽Reverol stated that six 鈥渢errorists and hired killers鈥� had been arrested. Opposition groups fear that the attack will be an excuse for a crackdown.
The jammers that thwarted this attack may not stop the next one. Some small drones are already able to carry out pre-programmed flights without a radio link, and navigation using cameras rather than GPS is an expanding field. If drones cannot be jammed, physical defences like nets, missiles or interceptor drones may be the only long-term solution.
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