FAA Partners With 3 Firms to Test Drone Detection Tools; Marke Gibson Comments

The Federal Aviation Administration has teamed up with Sensofusion, Gryphon Sensors and Liteye Systems to perform research and develop platforms that work to detect and track unmanned aerial systems near airports as part of the Pathfinder program.

FAA said Monday the initiative aims to detect unauthorized operations of drones at airports and facilitate the integration of UAS with the national airspace system.

FAA will collaborate with the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to test the firms’ prototypes of sensor systems designed for drone detection at selected airports through cooperative research and development agreements.

“Sometimes people fly drones in an unsafe manner,” said Marke Gibson, senior adviser on UAS integration at FAA.

“Government and industry share responsibility for keeping the skies safe, and we’re pleased these three companies have taken on this important challenge.”

The partnership with the three companies comes three months after FAA evaluated the CACI International-built prototype sensor system SkyTracker with DHS and the University of Maryland.