Albany County creating drone-detection 'umbrella'

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) -Hundreds of phone calls, messages and videos of drones have been flying into the Albany County Sheriff's Office. Sheriff Craig Apple said a lot of these sightings tend to be the same drones from different angles but all the buzz is leading the County to take action.

"What it's done is it's brought to the surface our vulnerabilities. We're protected and hardened on the ground but we're really not protected from things coming above us," described Sheriff Apple.

A drone was spotted above the Albany County Sheriff's Office just last week, flying in a grid pattern. Sheriff Apple said his team has a fleet of drones for a variety of jobs but that was not one of them.

"So we've been having webinars with certain companies to learn some of the detection equipment that's out there. I have a company that I will be going to the Legislature for, seeking funding to purchase it."

One such company is NUAIR, that has a few different ways it detects drones for the Syracuse Regional Airport Authority. "We have radar systems that can detect them, we have different RF passive and active sensors that can detect them and then we also have software that generates authorizations so that we know that if we see a drone plus an authorization they they're authorized," explained CEO Ken Stewart.

Sheriff Apple describes the system he's looking for as an 'umbrella' over the hub of State government. "Not only the ability to disrupt the drone and not let it into our secure space but the ability to pinpoint the lat and long of the operation."

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sent NEWS10's Anthony Krolikowski the following statement:

Some of those locations include Albany and Malta. A list can be found here.

The Albany County Sheriff's Office will be putting this project out to bid soon. Sheriff Apple hopes to have this software ready to use in a couple of weeks.