Airports

HAWK anti-drone system for airport security

Unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs), commonly referred to as drones, pose a serious threat to airport operations and passenger safety. Airports in particular are at risk of unauthorised drone incursions into controlled space. Most cases involve the desire to take a good photo of an aircraft taking off, or an operator's ignorance of legal provisions and prohibited areas for drone flights.

Real UAV threats

to airports

Drones violating airport controlled space have become a common occurrence. Every day there are more and more reports of drones spotted by aircraft pilots and reported to the tower. A drone spotted in the vicinity of an airport results in the automatic closure of airspace and the grounding of aircraft, which generates gigantic costs.

There are known cases where drones flying in the airport security zone even paralysed airport operations and air traffic for several days (East Midlands Airport in the UK). Another example is the incident at London-Gatwick Airport, where the airport was closed for 36 hours before Christmas in 2018 due to the unauthorised entry of two drones. There have also been collisions between a drone and an aircraft, such as the crash of a UAV into a Boeing 737 on approach in Mexico, where the fuselage of the aircraft was damaged.

Making use of more than 30 years of experience in the areas of security systems, military ICT systems, GPS satellite navigation systems and space systems, the engineers and scientists at Hertz Systems (Hertz Group) have developed the HAWK anti-drone system equipped with a hacking module that effectively detects and neutralises hostile aircraft, ensuring the security of the protected zone.

HAWK anti-drone system components

for airport security

Ensuring optimal airport security necessitates a comprehensive long-range solution integrating different detection and neutralisation technologies. Detection based on active (radar) and passive (direction finders) technologies allows drones to be detected regardless of their type of construction (rotorcraft, airframe) or the mode of flight (controlled, autonomous).

Once a hostile UAV has been successfully detected, it must be prevented from entering the protected zone, for which purpose we use omnidirectional and directional neutralisers, drone takeover modules or a hand-held neutraliser.

For real and effective protection against UAV threats, we recommend implementing a complete HAWK solution. The equipment and configuration of the individual system components are individually designed by the Hertz Systems and Hertz New Technologies engineering team.

HAWK implementation process for critical infrastructure