Looking at the photos, I've figured out counter measures against the MDARS.

They have a big red STOP BUTTON on all four corners of the vehicles!! LOL

So, if you could get one of those quad copters to land on the MDARS, suction cup to it, and then depress the red button, that thing will shut down!!

I should be getting paid for these ideas.

I suspect you are correct. However it is possible the buttons are to kill the RF energy for servicing.

Originally posted by Cryptonomicon
Looking at the photos, I've figured out counter measures against the MDARS.

They have a big red STOP BUTTON on all four corners of the vehicles!! LOL

So, if you could get one of those quad copters to land on the MDARS, suction cup to it, and then depress the red button, that thing will shut down!!

I should be getting paid for these ideas.

Bahaha nice. No, actually the big red STOP BUTTON'S are for when they randomly, though seldom, go completely out of control and on a rampage

I wonder how they operate if a few well-placed paintballs disrupt the optics. Course if you're that close and a good shot, you could just hit the STOP BUTTON.

Most drones have a remote kill "switch". Not a switch in the literal sense, but a method that bypasses much of the control system hardware to stop or destroy the device. If you read the DoD range control documents, these systems are discussed, of course without too much specific detail. They use federal/military UHF radio bands. It takes more than just a carrier wave to set off the destruct/stop, but they try to keep it simple for reliability. EG&G did artillery "electronic fuses" that I suspect are similar to the remote destruction schemes. They would detect for the presence of tones with the right frequency and twist, similar to DTMF.

There is a classic fubar at Edwards where the destruct signal was sent to a Global Hawk by accident, causing a crash. UAVs have procedures to deal with LOS (loss of signal), but if your system is truly autonomous, well it is a brave new world.

Has anyone sent these guys a memo saying the SR-71 program was canceled?

Just sayin'... wouldn't it be funny if Area 51 were SO compartmentalized that the security folks never realized there wasn't anything going on out there anymore?