The Drone Wars is really heating up as companies are racing to who gets to be the sheriff of the skies. We have seen different proposals on taking down drones that are turning into menace for airplanes above and crowds below. Whilst governments are not stopping ownership of drones by civilians, knowing that they can be valuable tools, they are looking for ways for them to be used safely by establishing rules and regulations.

For companies, they see some business in preventing drones to become threats. Shooting them down with rifles or shotguns may not exactly be a safe thing to do and may do more harm than good; using eagles to capture them have animal rights activists up in arms; and using drones to catch drones looks like the best possible way.

But one start-up company has a new way of disabling drones. SkySafe is a company that recently got US$3 million funding led by well-known venture capital group, Andreessen Horowitz. Its proposal is to use radio frequency to “hijack” drones and bring them down so that they will not go into areas that they are not allowed.

The SkySafe system will be marketed companies and organizations that want to keep away from their areas such as airports, facilities have-no-fly zones, and public places where a drone might pose a danger to the crowds below.

What it does is roughly described as it is able to identify and track drones, distinguishing which are authorized drones and those that are not supposed to be there. The system will then try to track the drone operator and if need be, taking control of the drone to bring it down safely, or if drastic action is needed disable it before it becomes a danger.

But as I mentioned it will be a race as SkySafe’s technology might win some battles but will have to be on its toes if it wants to keep doing business as drone companies will also build technologies that can go around such drone control systems. Military drones can defeat this system as they can cycle through different frequencies to avoid jamming or getting hijacked but these are expensive things to put into commercial/commercial drones.

For drone operators, it is a matter of common sense not to send their drones into restricted airspace or where they think that these might pose a danger to people. Unless, certified to be used in these area, it is best for them to exercise their hobbies in areas where they can let to fly unrestrained, wide open spaces far from these areas.