When Siete Hamminga, the CEO of Robin Radar, first heard that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had mentioned his company by name earlier this week at a press conference discussing recent reports of mysterious drones flying over the eastern U.S., he thought it was a joke.
After all, Robin Radar, a drone detection company based in the Netherlands, is fairly unknown to American law enforcement, and to Americans generally.
“We have only made our first steps in the U.S. market,” he told Forbes. The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, the research arm of the agency, used Robin Radar earlier this year as a security measure in the aftermath of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore (currently it’s being evaluated for further use).
Schumer has advocated for the DHS to deploy systems like Robin Radar in response to the panic around what appeared to be drones of unknown origin, fueled by social media posts, that began in mid-November. The sightings have been documented across New Jersey, New York and other parts of the East Coast, and have fueled numerous bizarre conspiracy theories including that the drones are alien in origin or under the control of foreign adversaries.
On Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration said the agency would impose “temporary flight restrictions” over 22 cities in New Jersey for the next month as a way to assuage concerns over the recent spate of purported drone sightings. That announcement came two days after the FAA, along with the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense jointly concluded that these drone reports do not “present a national security or public safety risk.”
This week, Sen. Schumer pushed for new legislation that would allow local authorities to conduct their own drone detection, but the bill has been stymied for now by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who argued that these current drone sightings do not represent a clear threat to the United States.
Robin Radar’s radar systems are not currently operational anywhere in the U.S., but that may change as the company offers its drone detection wares for different scenarios. “It goes from policing to private security, sporting events, and critical infrastructure,” Hamminga said. “I’m very convinced that a few years from now, every embassy will have its own drone detection, every prison.”
The CEO declined to provide pricing, but said its hardware costs “less than $1 million” per installation, far cheaper than traditional military-style radar, which often has difficulty with identifying something as small as a drone. Robin Radar, which had an operating profit of just under $20 million in 2023, according to Pitchbook, has already made a name for itself in Europe. Earlier this year, the Dutch Ministry of Defense announced that it would purchase 51 radars and donate them to Ukraine, to support the war against Russia. In October, Parcom, a Dutch private equity firm, purchased Robin Radar for an undisclosed amount.
Robin Radar’s “small but mighty” radar is a little white helmet-shaped device often mounted on a tripod or in a vehicle, which can scan up to five kilometers, or three miles, in every direction. The company initially began in 2010 working on a device to detect birds, but then expanded to drone detection.
There are different ways to detect drones, which are often used simultaneously. The simplest way is visually, and another method involves scanning radio frequencies, the communications sent between a pilot and the drone itself. But that doesn’t work if a drone is flying totally autonomously.
“With radar, it doesn’t matter,” Hamminga said, explaining that the company’s “micro-doppler” technique is designed to identify the distinctive motion of a bird’s wings, or a drone’s blades.
“The advantage of a radar is that we have 360 degree coverage. It’s full 3D, so every target has height information, and it allows us to visualize 3,000 targets in real time.”
It’s not clear exactly how Sen. Schumer came to be aware of Robin Radar, but it may have been as a result of a recent meeting between representatives from one of Robin Radar’s partners, Dedrone, and the New Jersey State Police. (Schumer’s office did not respond to Forbes’ request for comment. The New Jersey State Police referred Forbes to the governor’s office, which did not respond.)
Dedrone is a subsidiary of Axon, a company that dominates the American law enforcement market and sells everything from body-worn cameras to tasers. It also makes a drone detection software platform that integrates with the physical radars made by Robin Radar and others. (Dedrone also declined to comment.)
Even if drone detection systems like those made by Robin Radar were to become widespread across the United States, that still leaves an open question: if any drone poses a threat, what are authorities to do about it?
John Michael Dahm, a senior resident fellow for aerospace at the Mitchell Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, told Forbes that there are ways to disrupt a drone by jamming it electronically. There are even more intense “kinetic” tactics, which can lead to a myriad of other questions and scenarios.
“Do you want to shoot it with something? Do you want to hit it with another drone and make it crash? Do you want to shoot at it with a shotgun type weapon or with beanbags?” he said. “This raises the spectre of collateral damage. What if it crashes into a house and starts a fire?”
But outside of military uses, it’s very difficult for state and local authorities to get permission to disable drones – after all, shooting at aircraft is a federal crime. So for now, local law enforcement likely will start with finding them first.
“Even if you are not allowed to take [a drone] out, it is good to have situational awareness,” Hamminga said.
