What is Robin Radar Systems and how can it help track drones?
For weeks, residents in the Northeast have reported seeing thousands of unidentified lighted drones flying overhead, prompting lawmakers to demand that President Joe Biden’s administration explain what is happening and who is responsible.
While most incidents have come in New Jersey, other states, including Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, have also reported unusual drone activity to law enforcement.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, proposed several solutions on Sunday, specifically using Robin Radar Systems, a Netherlands-based company that specializes in tracking drones.
“We’re asking the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, to deploy special detection systems like the Robin, which use not a linear line of sight, but 360-degree technology that has a much better chance of detecting these drones,” Schumer told NBC News on Sunday. “We’re asking DHS to bring them to the New York, New Jersey area.”
But what exactly is Robin, and how does it work?
Specialized radar technology could help detect drones
Robin Radar Systems is a European-based defense and technology company founded in 2010. According to the company website, “Robin” is an acronym that stands for Radar Observation of Bird Intensity.
As the name suggests, Robin uses radar to detect and track drones. However, it says traditional radar is not always equipped to detect small objects like commercial drones or to distinguish them from birds. Rather than relying on traditional radar, Robin uses micro-doppler radar, which is better equipped to detect small, fast-moving objects and classify them accurately.
“I’m a firm believer that the systems [that] do track and detect drones will become the safety standard in all the prisons, airports, harbors, nuclear power plants and border security, critical infrastructures in general,” Robin Radar Systems’ CEO and founder Siete Hamminga told CBS News. “So I think we ‘ain’t seen nothing yet,’ as you say in the United States.”
How have other officials responded to the drones?
New York Governor Kathy Hochul called on Congress to enact stricter rules for drones while giving states wider authority to combat drone activity.
"This has gone too far," Hochul said in a statement on Saturday, a day after the runways at a local airport in upstate New York were shut down for an hour due to drones.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy wrote a letter to Biden on Thursday asking for more federal resources to investigate the phenomenon.
President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday that the U.S. military should tell the American public about the nature of the drone sightings. "The government knows what is happening," Trump said at a press conference. "For some reason, they don't want to comment. And I think they'd be better off saying what it is our military knows and our president knows."Paste BN's John Bacon, Francesca Chambers, Ahjané Forbes, Gabe Hauari, Thao Nguyen, and Anthony Roble; Reuters contributed to the reporting of this story.