Experimental Study on the Application of UAV Drone to Prevent Maritime Pirates Attacks

In this paper, we present a concept of an application of UAV drones as a possible low-cost device to avoid pirate attacks. Recent UAV drone can be operated in the range of more than 2km and transmit very clear images. Pirates will be approaching using a small boat and they will be climbing up along the sidewall of the ship. We tried several experiments in our laboratory to check how the drone can be applied to interfere the pirate approaching and climbing. We present a conceptual structure of an anti-piracy drone system and fabricated a part of device including a thermo camera sensor and a net launcher to stall the boat. The results showed this method seems effective considering the cost, although the operator must be trained to control the drone properly