Anti-Drone Weapons Seen Protecting Biden in Brussels | PetaPixel
President Biden met with King Philippe of Belgium at the Royal Palace in Brussels yesterday, and security personnel in the area were spotted carrying crazy-looking anti-drone weaponry to prevent everything from aerial photos to high-tech assassination attempts. New York Times staff photographer Doug Mills captured the above photo of the security guards who looked more like they were prepared for an alien invasion.
The bazooka-like weapon held by the guard on the left is the SkyWall Patrol handheld drone capture system made by a British company called OPENWORKS Engineering. It fires a projectile (with assisted targeting) that expands into a net, physically capturing the target drone and using a parachute to safely bring it down to the ground.
“It uses compressed air to launch a projectile up to the drone after the operator has targeted it using the onboard SmartScope, that compensates for drone speed and range automatically,” OPENWORKS writes. “Conventional weapons often fail to incapacitate a drone and do not offer a proportionate response to the drone threat and they can also escalate a situation when used in the vicinity of large crowds.”
