Metamaterial Retrofit for Omnidirectional Jammers

Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (sUAVs) can be easily modified (with chemical/biological agents, explosives and weapons) to attack defense related and commercial targets. One method to counter enemy UAVs (C-sUAVs) involves RF jamming their communication and/or GPS receivers. Phased array jammers that can detect, track and jam such enemy drones are often expensive. Handheld jammers, eagles and drones that deploy nets are examples of alternative solutions that have inconsistent results. Jammers that use omnidirectional antennas simply jam in all directions, but this also ends up jamming friendly communication systems. Notch Inc. is developing a metamaterial retrofit solution that can convert simple omnidirectional antennas into smart beamforming ones that behave like phased arrays. This would be useful to detecting, tracking and disabling aggressor drones. In addition, the RF energy can also be steered away from friendly communication systems that would have otherwise gotten jammed. The retrofit can be inexpensively manufactured and uses COTS parts. In addition, the metamaterial retrofit can be controlled in software to upgrade its direction finding and disabling capabilities.