Drone flying into important national facilities..."Location identification and response with R-ID.

Dong-A Dotcom IT reporter Kim Dong-jin (kdj@itdonga.com )

Source : https://it.donga.com/104080/

Recently, drones frequently flew to important national facilities such as Jeju International Airport, causing damage such as a temporary suspension of aircraft take-off and landing. If the drone was sucked into the aircraft engine or disturbed the control tower, it could lead to a terrible major disaster, adding to the seriousness of the situation. As drones penetrate facilities that have a significant impact on national security one after another, it is pointed out that effective measures to prevent recurrence should be established.

Aircraft take-off and landing temporarily suspended due to drone penetration at Jeju Airport...Drone Flying Into LNG Base On February 24, a male tourist in his 60s flew a drone without permission at an outdoor parking lot in Dodu-dong, Jeju-si, which is a no-fly zone. During the flight, the drone crashed on the roof of the domestic passenger terminal at Jeju Airport, which is a national important facility (highest grade), and was found by an airport employee.

A month later, on the afternoon of April 17, an object believed to be a drone flew over the second inspection center west of Jeju International Airport, flew for 16 minutes, came near the airport runway, and escaped toward the Jeju sewage treatment plant. When the "drone detection system," which was piloted by the Korea Airports Corporation's airport operation center at the time, detected the drone, the Jeju Airport Control Tower immediately stopped taking off and landing the aircraft. As a result, two aircraft that were about to land at Jeju Airport were ordered to fly over the sky for a certain time, and five aircraft that were about to take off from Jeju Airport were also stranded. After the incident, the Jeju Western Police Station analyzed CCTV footage around the airport for more than a month, but closed the investigation, saying it could not identify any objects other than birds. In other words, there is no way to figure out what objects have threatened aviation safety so far.

The problem is that this is happening repeatedly. On November 20, 2021, a base worker found a 25cm diameter drone crashed inside the Incheon LNG base of the Korea Gas Corporation in Songdo International City, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, and reported it to the police. LNG bases are also important national facilities with the highest security level in Korea.

The memory card inserted into the drone contained video footage of some of the main facilities and port facilities in the LNG base, and was identified as a drone that flew without permission from the 17th Army Division, an adjacent unit.

After the incident, the Korea Gas Corporation's Incheon Base Headquarters announced in December 2021 that it would establish an anti-drone system by signing a "National Important Facility Boundary Agreement" with four organizations, including the Army's 17th Division 102nd Brigade, Incheon Maritime Defense Command, Yeonsu Police Station, and E1 Incheon LPG Base. Along with drone detection and identification equipment, the plan was to prevent drones flying based on frequency disturbance and radio wave blocking equipment. But the same thing happened again.

At around 5 p.m. on March 22, a man in his 50s was arrested by police on charges of shooting security facilities in the base by flying drones near the LNG base in Incheon without permission. An anti-drone system established by the Korea Gas Corporation caught a drone flying near the base and reported it to the police and military authorities, and it was possible to secure a video of the base facility for about 10 seconds.

Compared to the fact that the drone penetrated the base until the worker found the drone that fell to the ground last year, there has been progress, but there is still a voice that the problem is that the drone is accessible near important national facilities. It is time to come up with fundamental measures.

Real-time location information of drones...Drive response with unique identification number Jeju Airport, where drones penetrated one after another following the Incheon LNG base, also built an anti-drone system with a total of four equipment, including two radars and two scanners. Through this, it is expected that illegal drones around 3km can be tracked. Currently, Jeju Airport is conducting an empirical test to see if the anti-drone system can detect even small drones using early morning hours.

Among them, an ultra-precise satellite navigation device with an average error range of less than 2cm and an altitude of less than 10cm is installed on the drone to identify real-time location information, while giving the drone a unique Remote ID.

Since last year, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has mandated location data transmission for new drones weighing more than 0.55 pounds, and from this year, flights of drones without location data transmission function are illegal. In Korea, there were many voices calling for stable drone traffic management and precise flight information collection to make it possible against a series of drones' penetration into important national facilities.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Korea Aviation Safety and Technology Institute are conducting a K-drone system demonstration support project with the aim of early commercialization of excellent drone technology and fostering excellent companies. Cinarex and MBC were in charge of identifying real-time location information of domestic RTK (Real-Time Kinetic) GPS-based drones and establishing drone identification number transmission functions based on precise location information.

Cynarex is a company that developed a satellite navigation system (RTK GPS) that provides ultra-precise location information by correcting satellite signal errors based on a reference station on the ground. It is developing and supplying products that apply domestic technology to the satellite navigation device market, which is mostly foreign equipment. MBC has more than 40 reference stations nationwide to correct errors in satellite signals, and is working with Cinarex.

With existing general GPS-based location information, it was difficult to accurately locate the drone due to large errors in latitude, longitude, and altitude. Based on RTK GPS, precise location information of the drone can be identified with an error of less than 2cm in latitude and longitude and less than 10cm in altitude, while identifying a unique identification number at the control station. While greatly strengthening the stability of drone flight, systematic management of drones released by drone service providers is also possible. It is also expected to save money as it can replace expensive foreign RTK GPS with domestic ones.

CEO Park Jae-deok said, "It is time to accumulate data through various demonstrations while considering how to establish standards for granting drone identification number certification and test evaluation methods for unpredictable aircraft's real-time location and systematic management." "We need to establish a systematic drone management system based on drone identification numbers as soon as possible," he said.

Dong-A Dotcom IT reporter Kim Dong-jin (kdj@itdonga.com )

Source: https://it.donga.com/104080/