Drones are already flying autonomously, that is a big part of the problem. They can and do fly pre- programmed flight paths so there is nothing to jam to stop them.
I believe the little fellas' will be regulated soon enough and almost certainly be required to have an on- board, non- disable-able flight routine that forces them to land (or not take off in the first place). Upon receipt of a specific, encrypted signal, they would simply land (not crash but actually descend under power). The signal would of course be issued by agencies of the gov't, starting with the FAA. For example, perhaps air control towers would broadcast this signal continuously, preventing drones from flying at all w/in some distance of any / all airports. It could also be used by other personnel, even individual LEO's perhaps, to force a drone to stop any illegal behavior.
The president has already been set for this as all Blu Ray players have a required 'anti- piracy' chip in them, placed there by the manufacturer and not readily removable by consumers.
This of course will not stop all drone problems but it may be a useful method to exercise some control over them. And of course there will be those who modify drones to remove such a device, as well as companies that sell the service to remove them (just like re-flashing a vehicle ECU or adding a Power Commander, then slapping a big sticker that says "For off- road use only" on it as a legal 'out').
As I already said, I think they are a great tool as well as a toy but they also come with quite a few negative aspects and uses. We will use them and try to curb the negative aspects; we will not succeed completely but we will get the damage rate down to an acceptable level. Exactly like cars: great tools that provide almost unlimited benefits to society while at the same time killing tens of thousands of people every year. We try to minimize the damage done but cannot eliminate it and the benefits are great enough that we accept the negative aspects and costs. But the fact is that going forward, drones are going to cause problems for no other reason than they exist and are being used- exactly like the car..... there were no deaths or injuries from cars
before they were in common use, and once they were in common use there has never been a time when we have been able to eliminate damage caused by them. And I believe exactly like cars, there is going to be a lot of time spent regulating, controlling, limiting and generally lessening the damage they can do moving forward; we will be tinkering with these issues for years to come, perhaps forever.
Brian
I think jamming technology will soon be available (at the consumer level) to disrupt these boogers. FCC illegal no doubt, but difficult to detect and once the tech is out (Pinterest, Instructables, etc.) droning will loose it's appeal. Long before drones (the new multi-blade hovering helicopter type) there was always a possibility of a radio controlled model aircraft flying into the White House loaded with who knows what. The fact that it never happened always made me think that there was probably full time Federal jamming going on in select secure areas around the country. Some of those RC aircraft are humongous.
Now what happens when they start putting in GPS guidance in the flying boogers and they fly pre-planned routes with designated hover points with set on station times and they are in no need of ground based radio guidance....?
Then we'll need to start making 4 barreled potato guns that can shoot nets 200-300 feet in the air I guess.