This proposed crowdsensing approach for tracking drones allows participants to make some side cash
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Because they’re so useful for so many things, drones will undoubtedly become a more common sight in the next few years. And as the number of drones in the sky increases, the need to track these mini-flying machines as they move from one spot to another will become more important.
In a recent study in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, a team of scientists in China proposed an intriguing way to track unfamiliar drones through crowdsensing. Their approach leverages participants’ smartphones to detect the Wi-Fi signals of drones.
Tracking drones would be especially helpful in situations where the devices were being used for ill-intentioned purposes, such as for peeping in at someone or to transport illegal substances. But as Zhiguo Shi of Zhejiang University notes, “Detecting drones, especially in urban environments, is not easy. Traditional approaches are of huge cost, since the corresponding equipment, such as radars, cameras, and microphone arrays, are very expensive.”
His team sought to find a cheaper method. They realized that most drones use Wi-Fi technology to communicate with ground control stations. At the same time, virtually all smartphones can detect Wi-Fi signals and phones are abundant, especially in urban settings.