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We Need To Build Anti-Drone Systems For Civilian Spaces

It might be entirely too easy to create drones that could chase people around - as this DIY effort to create an AI-steered homing/killer drone demonstrates.

As @luiswenus points out, this danger should be countered by some sort of anti-drone system right away.

Science fiction author Neal Stephenson foresaw the need for this about thirty years ago in his 1995 novel The Diamond Age:

the real border was defended by something called the dog pod grid - a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats...

These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern about ten centimeters apart near the ground (close enough to stop a dog but not a cat, hence "dog pods") and spaced wider as they got higher.
(Read more about dog pod grid aerostats)

I'd add that Philip K. Dick described swarms of computer-controlled hunter-killer drones in Vulcan's Hammer (1960); see robot tracking device.

Frank Herbert described a tiny drone that was guided by a human hand in his 1965 novel Dune:

From behind the headboard slipped a tiny hunter-seeker no more than five centimeters long. Paul recognized it at once - a common assassination weapon that every child of royal blood learned about at an early age. It was a ravening sliver of metal guided by some near-by hand and eye.


(Hunter Seeker from 'Dune' by Frank Herbert)

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Related News Stories - (" Weapon ")

Can A Swarm Of Deadly Drones Take Out An Aircraft Carrier?
'The border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.' - Neal Stephenson, 1995.

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We Need To Build Anti-Drone Systems For Civilian Spaces
'the real border was defended by ...a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats...' - Neal Stephenson, 1995.

Bullet Steers Itself! The Advanced Low-Cost Munitions Ordnance ALaMO
'You've heard of a bullet that has your name on it.' - Michael Crichton, 1985.

 

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