It turns out tweeters can destroy airborne drones better than a Boeing-manufactured laser weapon, based on a recent technology competition hosted by the Canadian military, said The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Four college students from the University of Toronto beat Boeing by using car tweeters that create blasts of ultrasound waves.
One of the winning university students, who studies robotics, literally unscrewed the two tweeters from his car to produce the first version of the anti-drone system. After getting good results, the students purchased more expensive tweeters that produced frequencies over 20kHz.
As the WSJ put it, all materials have a resonance point at which they vibrate when struck by sound waves. A common demonstration of this is that musical tones at around 556 Hz can shatter a wine glass.
The students placed second out of 15 entries that also included other major corporations such as Teledyne. The winner was a laser weapon from a small Australian company called AIM Defence.
The student project is called Prandtl Dynamics, and it is seeking funding to expand the project. Canadian Army officials said they would be interested in the technology if the students can extend the range for stopping the drones out to 100 meters from the current 50 meters. Magnets and lenses can be used to magnify the sound waves.
See The Wall Street Journal Story here (subscription may be required).
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