Exclusive | NYC eyes system that uses net-firing drones to entangle and take down ‘hostile’ drones

The NYPD plans to cast a wide net when it comes to protecting the Big Apple against nefarious drone operators.

The city is in talks with Maryland-based American Robotics to buy technology that can detect, track and intercept “hostile drones,” Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Kaz Daughtry told The Post.

The company has developed a portable station that can launch two or three 8-pound drones capable of intercepting a suspect drone in midair — then fire a lightweight mesh net at the invasive drone, entangling its rotors and preventing it from flying. A parachute then activates to bring the enemy drone down safely to the ground.

The drone launchers can be used along parade routes or other large events, he said.

“They have a counter-drone detection system where it will detect a hostile drone,” said Daughtry, a former NYPD detective. “The net will go around the drone and it will safely land.”

Daughtry, who directs the city’s fleet of 150 drones, has been in talks with the company about using its Iron Drone Raider System and hopes to have a deal soon, he said.

“We could station it anywhere throughout the city,” Daughtry said.

The system, which uses eight-pound racer drones, costs less than $200,000, American Robotics CEO Eric Brock said.

“Ground radar would detect something that’s unidentified,” Brock said, explaining that the person in charge of the drone would then press a button to activate it. “Once we locate the drone we track it and hunt it.”

His company shows off the tech in a dramatic video on YouTube.

Brock said he couldn’t identify the company’s current clients because of security issues, but said they have been working with the UAE in the Middle East.

Similar tech — minus the parachute — has been used by the Ukrainians to take down Russian drones.

Before the raider drones could be deployed in NYC, the federal government would have to lift restrictions that ban local jurisdictions from taking down flying vehicles. Right now, only feds have that authorization.

Daughtry, who worries most about potential drone attacks from a “lone wolf,” has been lobbying the Trump administration with Chief of Department John Chell to change that.

“I’m hearing that the [Trump] administration is open to it,” he said. 

Daughtry has been on the leading edge of drone use as an NYPD official under Mayor Adams.

Daughtry has been talking to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch about assigning drones to members of the NYPD’s Community Response Teams. The drones would be launched from wherever cops are patrolling, and piloted remotely from One Police Plaza in Lower Manhattan, he said.

The drones would then provide video feed of suspects trying to flee and help cops find them, he said. Officers would no longer have to wait for the Aviation Unit to send helicopters from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn.

“When they have a barricaded suspect or a suspect who’s hiding in the woods, they can just open their trunk, put the drone up, turn it on and they can run,” he said. “They can just leave and the drone will launch itself.”

The move to put drones in cars was the final phase of a program that started last year with placing drones on precinct station house roofs in crime-prone areas and using them as first responders on 911 calls.

Earlier this month the NYPD had Skydio X10 drones out in droves to monitor anti-Trump protests and was able to use them to track crowd movement and deploy its officers to hotspots.

“There were drones all over the place,” Daughtry said.

Those drones can go as high as 800 feet but the city keeps them at 400 so they don’t collide with airplanes, he said. The drones give NYPD brass eyes in the sky, but can also be crime deterrents.

“When people are committing acts like vandalism or they’re about to do something we can bring the drone down real close so they know that we’re watching them,” he said.

The FDNY has drones that can monitor its beaches for struggling swimmers and the Office of Emergency Management has drones for use in mapping out disasters.

When Daughtry first began championing drones back in 2022, he got pushback from some other cops, he said.

“They told me that we would never be able to have drones in the city,” he said. “Guess what? Now we’re using them all over the place.”