Drone Passion GmbH, based in Guntramsdorf near Vienna, concentrates on the defense market in addition to photography and filming as well as visual inventory and damage surveys in the industrial sector with its own drones. The portfolio includes portable anti-UAV systems in particular, as Managing Director Patrick Esser explains.
Mr. Esser, how did Drone Passion come about?
The first ideas for a joint company grew in 2018, and the following year the time had come. The combination of industrial experience and expertise in personal protection proved to be ideal for us. This gives us a broad base and allows us to use our experience in the industrial sector to identify new opportunities for our customers in the government and military sectors, for example, and vice versa. We have seen that the “large” stationary systems are offered by many international suppliers, so we have turned our attention to small mobile and portable systems, with which we are almost unique. https://militaeraktuell.at/bundesheer-und-ispa-intensivieren-zusammenarbeit/
You recently presented two portable components at IDEX, one for detecting and one for jamming. How does that work?
Together, these two systems are among the smallest and most mobile anti-UAV systems on the market. The detector scans the common radio bands for signs of communication between a drone and its remote control. If a drone is detected, the jammer automatically jams the detected frequency.
“With our portable systems, which are about the size of a radio, we can detect drones up to three kilometers away.”
How complicated is the detection of these drone guidance signals and their interference? And at what distances does it work?
On the hardware side, it is quite simple. However, it depends a lot on the software that processes the data. The better the software, the better the various types of drone are detected. With our portable systems, which are about the size of a radio, we can detect drones up to three kilometers away. With the larger systems, which are used stationary or on vehicles or ships, we are able to detect drones at a distance of up to 25 kilometers.
Do you need both systems for effective protection? Or does one system already help?
Yes, of course the systems can also be purchased individually and this is often the case, especially with private security companies or in the critical infrastructure sector. Thanks to the software with its open interfaces, our systems can be easily expanded “plug and play” at any time or, if required, several systems can be connected to form a large system, as is the case at a major event.
Are there any procurement plans or contacts with our armed forces? And if not, is it a marketing problem if your own army does not use my systems?
There are contacts to the Austrian Armed Forces (-> here you can find the latest army news) and of course it would be an advantage from a marketing point of view if Austrian systems were also used by the Austrian army. We hope that something will come up for us in the current procurement wave. What conclusions does a specialist company like yours draw from the “war of drones” in Ukraine?
Unlike other companies, we were already involved in the war in Ukraine before it started. war in Ukraine we also saw how neglected this topic was beforehand, regardless of the sector. Now I think many people have realized what is possible with drones and how important it is to reliably detect and defend against them. However, there is still a lack of awareness of data protection when it comes to drones. Authorities or the military would never use weapons, vehicles or other equipment where location data, system statuses and other important information can be read out by external parties. However, this is exactly the case with the Chinese drones used in Austria.
“the war in ukraine shows how important it is to reliably detect and defend against drones.”
What is the latest innovation from your company?
We are currently launching our own anti-UAV systems developed in Austria. We are also the exclusive sales partner for the DACH region for government and military drones that are manufactured entirely in the EU – including explosive payload. These can also be used to secure camps, for example, or fly completely RF-silent. This means they are not detected by detection systems – or interfered with by their own system.
