In the future, it is expected that drones and swarms of drones will be used in attacks on critical infrastructure. Their defence requires systems for attack detection that can detect individual drones or entire swarms of drones at a distance of at least one kilometre with a short reaction time and in all light and weather conditions.

Against this background, BDEW, Fraunhofer FKIE and 450connect GmbH have decided to provide experimental proof of the suitability of an LTE450 base station as an illuminator for passive radar detection of a drone. As an illuminator, the 450 MHz radio network offers the advantage over other sources of opportunity that it is tailored to the requirements of critical infrastructures. The experiments showed that the drone used could be detected wit ...