Tokyo metro police to use nets to snare suspicious craft

If an operator fails to comply, police will scramble large drones up to 10 feet long armed with cameras and nets to take down the unwanted machines.

Japan has moved to tighten drone regulations after a 40 year old man protesting over the government’s nuclear energy policy was arrested for flying a drone carrying radioactive sand on to the prime minister’s roof in April.

Drone enthusiasts in Japan may find it harder to play with their devices following the launch of an anti-drone squad.©Tyler Olson/shutterstock.comTOKYO, Dec 11 – To protect the city from potentially risky rogue drones, the Metropolitan Police Department of Tokyo has put together a unit specifically for capturing other drones, according to Japan Today. On the ground, officers will use loudspeakers to warn the controller of the suspicious drone to leave the area.

“Terrorist attacks using drones carrying explosives are a possibility”, a senior member of the police department’s Security Bureau was reported as saying. “We hope to defend the nation’s functions with the worst-case scenario in mind”.

“Japan’s new net-carrying, drone-disabling drone is certainly an interesting way to police those areas where drones are forbidden”, added Mr Haswell.

Police in Tokyo are mobilizing to stop illegal drone usage, and they plan to use drones of their own to take offending aircraft out of the sky.

Drones-commercially available quadcopters and the like-are great and versatile pieces of technology, but that versatility lends itself to less than desirable uses.