DARPA wants an 'Aerial Dragnet' to monitor urban drone traffic

Conventional air traffic might be tightly controlled and monitored, but even with the new FAA regulations, drones and other unmanned aerial systems are mostly operating without any government oversight. And that doesn't sit well with the folks at the Pentagon, who fear that easy access to affordable drones could make them easily adaptable for terrorist or military purposes. To combat this potential threat, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, announced this week an "Aerial Dragnet" program that aims to map all small drone activity in urban settings. "Commercial websites currently exist that display in real time the tracks of relatively high and fast aircraft--from small general aviation planes to large airliners--all overlaid on geographical maps as they fly around the country and the world," DARPA's program manager Jeff Krolik said. "We want a similar capability for identifying and tracking slower, low-flying unmanned aerial systems, particularly in urban environments."