I know very little about drones, but, in a demo I made years ago (trying to convince someone to give me money for using this in a drone defense product), I was able to "fingerprint" different drone models, even sometimes distinguish between two different drones of the same model. As long as there's line of sight, you can sometimes "see", in the data, slight changes in the speed of the propeller, as well as the rough "shape" of the drone itself.
But for all those applications, even though I love sound, I always think to myself.... "wouldn't a pair of cheap cameras do this better?" :)
> no longer there, but happy to talk if you're interested.
Thanks!
That's part of where they've gone (though the cameras are far from cheap) as well as RF, with some AI magic sprinkled on top.
I wouldn't suggest doing drone defense, but smaller-scale asset protection might be more approachable. There's what, 3000 local governments in the US? I'm sure a lot of them have had a tractor stolen from a road construction site. Or maybe if they lease their equipment you could sell a solution to the leasing company.
It's a big field, but if you could, for instance, set up an alert for when a noise source crosses a property border, or when something that sounds like a human comes within x meters of a particular building, I think that would be valuable. I'm no longer there, but happy to talk if you're interested.