Fireworks are fading, but their high-tech replacement comes with new risks

Drone shows are rapidly replacing fireworks at concerts, sporting events and Fourth of July celebrations as communities embrace what many see as a safer, more environmentally friendly alternative. However, as the skies become more crowded with drones, security experts say the increasingly crowded airspace around large public events can make it more difficult to detect potentially bad actors.

R2 Wireless CEO of U.S. Operations Cordell Bennigson, who is a retired Marine Corps officer, told Fox News Digital that the growing prevalence of drone shows demonstrates how accessible the technology has become, creating new challenges for event security and public safety.

Bennigson said that he personally enjoys drone shows and finds them to be "impressive," but said the displays highlight a growing security challenge that extends well beyond the shows themselves.

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"A drone show itself isn't a security risk, but it's an indication of how accessible drones are," he said. "The other piece of the puzzle is what happens in the clutter and the noise of the full RF spectrum, all the wireless transmissions that are out there."

The radio frequency (RF) spectrum is made up of the invisible wireless signals used by everything from cellphones to drones. These airwaves can become busy during drone shows, due to the tech involved in the show and the spectators taking videos on their phone. According to Bennigson, the additional wireless traffic can make it more difficult for security officials to identify an unauthorized drone flying near an event, allowing it to blend in with legitimate electronic activity.

"Detection is the first line of defense," Bennigson said. "Obviously, we want to be able to defend against a drone from a bad actor, but we have to be able to detect it, and we have to be able to see through all of that clutter, all of the noise in the electromagnetic spectrum, in order to do that."

While some might think reducing wireless transmissions could be a solution, Bennigson said the idea is "unrealistic." In fact, he believes the technology will only become more prevalent, making it even harder to mitigate noise on the RF spectrum. Instead, Bennigson said that experts need to focus on refining detection capabilities.

"The question has to become, how do we get better at seeing or detecting within the noise, within the clutter?" he said.

Bennigson compared the approach to the use of night vision goggles.

"People with bad intentions used to be able to hide in the dark, and then we didn't get rid of the dark in order to mitigate that. We got better at seeing in the dark in order to mitigate it. And then it turned out actually we could use that capability for other kinds of things as well. So, we have to get better at seeing in the electromagnetic spectrum, which is what our focus is at R2, being able to do exactly that," Bennigson told Fox News Digital.

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Bennigson said artificial intelligence is becoming an increasingly important tool in detecting potential bad actors. He noted that the technology is able to rapidly sift through enormous amounts of wireless data, something that would be hard for humans to do in real time.

"AI is really good at picking up patterns. It's really good at rapidly going through large amounts of data," he said. "And so if you want to detect a drone or any other kinds of radio transmission that's happening in an environment where there's lots of other transmissions going on, how do you sort through all of that information really quickly? And how do you learn really quickly when something new shows up that maybe you haven't seen before? AI is very, very effective and very powerful in that environment."

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The challenge of drones becoming more prevalent and crowding the RF spectrum extends beyond shows and events, according to Bennigson. He believes that as drones become more common, cities, states and the federal government will need to rethink how they monitor airspace around stadiums, critical infrastructure and other places where large crowds gather.

"This needs to be something that we are paying attention to at the national, at the state, at city, and at the individual event level. We need to recognize that this is a very easy to acquire and very easy to employ capability for anybody who wants to get their hands on it," he said.

Bennigson added that it is crucial to have detection and defense capabilities that are ahead of the bad actors, rather than chasing them.

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As drone traffic grows, the new challenges that emerge will also require regulators tasked with monitoring an increasingly crowded airspace to make changes.

Bennigson said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has systems that work well for aircraft and drones that are operating legally and broadcasting their location. The problem, he said, is when someone with malicious intent who is unlikely to follow those rules enters the picture.

"We can't be relying on them telling us that they are there. We need to have systems that are in place that can identify them. One way that we're familiar with for that is radar."

He warned that while radar can detect things that are not transmitting their location, it also has limitations. One problem, according to Bennigson, is that having radars blasting in urban environments risks disrupting other signals. Additionally, radar can have difficulties picking up low flying first-person view drones. He believes that "radar is a piece of the puzzle, but it can't be the only tool."

"If the FAA is only relying on radar and only relying on friendly transmitters, that leaves a gap for some bad actors to be able to utilize, to be able to operate without being seen," he said.