The DJI Phantom is invisible to the radar systems there

Jan 29, 2015 08:17 GMT  ·  By

The other day, a man who owns a DJI Phantom quadcopter, and who also may or may not have been drunk at the time, decided to take the flying drone out for a spin, and he ended up crashing it in the middle of the White House lawn. This, naturally, caused a security panic.

Apparently, the drone was completely invisible to all the radar detection systems employed by the staff and security forces tasked with keeping the president safe and sound.

The only reason the drone was spotted early on was because a Secret Service agent was reportedly patrolling the White House grounds at 3:08AM on Monday morning and saw it as it flew in and crashed.

This, in turn, sparked the question of how the little, innocuous machines could be weaponized, and how to counter those attempts.

After all, instead of an action camera the drone could be loaded with some C-4 or whatever other kind of explosive. No need to be a genius to know how that would turn out. And let's not even get started on how anthrax could be spread around.

The solution? Ban the things apparently

DJI decided to issue a mandatory firmware upgrade for all future Phantom quadcopters, one that will disable them altogether when they enter the no fly zone in Washington DC.

The no-fly zone is a perimeter with a 15.5-mile / 25 km radius of downtown Washington DC. Presumably, the Inspire 1 and Spreadwings series will be restricted in the same way, but it has not happened yet.

This fits DJI's modus operandi of restricting use of the drones. The devices are already inoperable around airports, across national borders, or across other restricted areas as determined by local authorities.

Taken like that, it could be surprising that DJI did not include the Washington DC restriction in its drones from the very beginning. Especially since the DJI drone is already restricted in this manner in Beijing, China. Fortunately, the so-called oversight was brought to light by a relatively harmless incident.

Implications for the customers

DJI is actually doing them a favor really. There are strict aviation laws that impose no fly rules in various areas of the world, so it would behoove people to abide by them with or without the firmware-based restrictions.

By including the stipulation at that level, DJI is reducing the chances that remote drone operators have of unwittingly breaking aviation laws.

Washington DC no-fly zone
Washington DC no-fly zone

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Washington DC no-fly zone
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