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  The rapid development of drones at present has shown everyone the extensive application of drones in warfare, while also raising concerns about the threats posed by drones. How to defend against drones and what kind of weapons can be used for drone defense has become a focus of attention.

  Drones have various types of countermeasure weapons, including electronic jamming, drone control takeover technology, hard-kill techniques, net capture technology, laser weapons, microwave weapons, and anti-drone drones. Although there are many methods to counteract drones, the most cost-effective and efficient method remains electronic jamming technology. Today, let's talk about what kind of weapons can be used and how to counteract drones in actual combat.

  In drone defense, the most difficult to guard against are small and mini drones because of their small size, speed, low cost, and often catch people off guard. Therefore, to counter them, they must be detected first. It is not difficult to see from various combat cases that when such small drones are spotted by the naked eye, it's already too late.

  How to detect them is the first issue for drone countermeasure weapons. In past air defense experiences, radar technology was primarily used according to previous experiences. However, radars have revealed many problems when facing small drones. Due to the small size of small drones and their certain degree of concealment, they often lead to misjudgments by traditional radars.

  Therefore, the most widely used technology at present is Cognitive Radio Protocol Cracking(CRPC), which is also the technology adopted by the major world powers. The main advantage of this technology is that it does not detect targets based on the object's shape, size, or reflective surface, but rather focuses on the analysis of radio frequency communication bands. No matter what form the target takes, this technology can effectively detect the target and carry out tracking and countermeasures.

  Based on this technological approach, a variety of drone countermeasure weapon systems can be developed. For example, drone countermeasure guns, automatic tracking and targeting systems for drone countermeasures, and so on.

  However, due to the continuous evolution of drones' anti-jamming capabilities, using this set of technologies still brings risks to the users.   

  The anti-jamming capabilities of drones are mainly improved in three directions: first, by increasing the bandwidth of communication frequency bands; second, by adopting frequency-hopping communication modes; and third, by installing high-frequency antennas to increase the strength against radio noise. This makes ordinary radio interference difficult to be effective.

  Radio electronic jamming mainly has three methods: tracking jamming, blocking jamming, and synchronized jamming. The first one, tracking jamming, involves generating noise in the corresponding frequency band based on the detected radio communication frequency and emitting it for interference. Most of the mainstream counter-drone weapons currently adopt tracking jamming methods. However, drones can increase bandwidth by frequency hopping, and the countermeasure module needs to continuously adjust the jamming frequency according to the frequency hopping changes of the drone communication, which can slow down the countermeasure effect, especially when encountering FPVs. Due to their extremely fast flight speed, they may lose the target.

  The second method, blocking jamming, involves emitting noise in a fixed frequency band to suppress the drone's communication frequency with greater power. Weapons that use this method are usually drone countermeasure guns. Drone countermeasure guns interrupt the data transmission between the drone and the operator by opening jamming in a fixed frequency band. However, this method must complete the task in a very short time because the bandwidth increases due to the drone's frequency hopping. Blocking jamming requires emitting higher power noise on the corresponding bandwidth, which leads to a sharp rise in the temperature of the countermeasure module and rapid energy consumption. If the countermeasure module's temperature is too high, it will cause the power amplifier of the countermeasure frequency band to be in an unstable state.

  The third jamming method is synchronized jamming. This jamming method involves cracking the frequency hopping synchronization sequence of the drone communication to find the rule of the communication frequency hopping and directly allocate the maximum power jamming to the frequency hopping band. This method is the most effective countermeasure, but it also has very high requirements for communication parsing ability. Usually, such weapons must be equipped with a strong computing module.

  Of course, using a specific type of drone countermeasure weapon does not guarantee good results. Although radio frequency analysis and jamming technologies are practical, they cannot keep up with numerous targets at the same time. In actual combat, drone countermeasure weapons are usually diverse. To achieve the best results, they need to be used in combination, tailored to different scenarios and targets.