Australian-listed US-based technology products developer, Department 13 (D13 has successfully tested its recently launched counter-drone product, Mesmer.
D13 (ASX:D13), which listed in Australia last year, developed its counter-drone to enable an effective and safe method of protecting personnel and infrastructure from dangerous drones.
According to Jonathan Hunter, CEO of Department 13, Mesmer performed at the highest levels during the sales demonstrations and operational tests in Australia to a wide variety of potential customers.
“D13 working with our Australian Distributor, EPE, demonstrated a capability of a flexible, adaptive counter drone solution that will continue to grow to meet the drone threats of today and those of tomorrow.
{loadposition peter}“With increased worldwide drone activity that presents evolving security challenges, there is a growing interest in our platform. We look forward to fielding Mesmer’s capabilities to organisations entrusted with protecting their constituents from potentially dangerous situations.”
Mesmer is a patented, low power, non-jamming, non-line of sight, non-kinetic drone mitigation solution and Hunter says the company expects to provide updates on sales of Mesmer in Australia on finalisation of purchase orders through EPE following on from the demonstrations.
Hunter also said the company expects to provide news on initial sales in the US shortly after.
Hunter says the emergence of small, lightweight, low cost Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) offers many applications and benefits, however, UAS technologies are able to be employed to remotely deploy threats.
“The demonstrated use of UAS by conventional, non-state and irregular forces has added another dimension of threat.”
Mesmer works by providing automated detection and mitigation strategies, allowing users (either autonomously or with a person in the loop) to stop, redirect, land, or take total control of a target drone. This is done with protocol manipulation, which takes advantage of weaknesses found in all digital radio protocols.
According to Hunter, unlike other counter drone systems that use radio jamming and standard electronic mitigation techniques, Mesmer uses signal features and metadata to select and apply strategies in order to curtail drone threats, “regardless of how drone vendors may try and prevent this from happening”.
“This protocol manipulation is low power so it doesn’t affect non-targeted communication signals, which is a plus. This also allows Mesmer to operate below 1 watt and within Australian ACMA and NZ RSM regulatory constraint.”