Drone detection

Zwei Drohnen fliegen hintereinander
© Fraunhofer IDMT/Hannes Kalter
At large events or airports, decisions must be made within seconds as to whether a drone is approaching with peaceful intentions or not.
Die Forschenden des Fraunhofer IDMT in Oldenburg können Drohnen nicht nur detektieren, sondern auch lokalisieren.
© Fraunhofer IDMT/OpenStreet Map
Researchers at Fraunhofer IDMT in Oldenburg can not only detect drones, but also locate them.

A new security environment and the widespread availability of drones and other aircraft are creating threat scenarios for sensitive areas such as airports, military facilities, and large events. In order to respond appropriately, tools are needed to detect and locate potential sources of danger. This requires not only powerful microphones and audio signal processing technologies, but also machine learning methods. This allows audiological data to be used by acoustic sensors even in challenging environmental conditions, such as high ambient noise levels. Additional expertise in the discreet and effective enclosure and distribution of sensor technology expands the range of possible applications.

Every drone has an “acoustic fingerprint” that can be identified and stored in a database. Drone detection refers to the automated search for this fingerprint, i. e. a specific pattern in the acoustic signal that can be assigned to a drone.

Benefits of the technology

Situational Awareness:

The key to effective threat prevention. Threats are detected acoustically at an early stage, even without a line of sight.

360-degree surveillance:

Noises from all directions can be monitored continuously, seamlessly, and reliably.

Concealment (passive):

Since the passive acoustic drone detection system does not transmit signals, it cannot be detected or jammed by enemy electronic countermeasures (such as jammers).

Complementary addition:

Acoustic sensors can be seamlessly integrated with other systems, such as optical sensors. The technology can be fully integrated into a sensor data fusion system.

Not in sight, but within hearing range: detecting and locating drones thanks to intelligent sensor data fusion

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Further Information

 

Press Release / 13.11.2025

Reliable acoustic drone detection

Detecting and locating drones thanks to intelligent sensor data fusion

 

An insight into our research

Defense against drones

An interview with Christian Rollwage about »drone detection and localisation«. He talks about audio signal enhancement for emergencies.

 

Project website Fraunhofer FKIE

Drone detection and localisation

The high availability of drones opens up many new fields of application, but also threat scenarios, e.g. near airports and major events. In the AMBOS joint project, we are developing solutions for these challenges.

 

Protection of meadow birds

Automatic Detection, Localisation and Tracking of Meadow Birds by means of an Intelligent Acoustic Sensor System” for nature protection in practice

 

DeViSe

Automatic Detection, Localization and Tracking of Birds and Animal Sounds by means of an Intelligent Acoustic Sensor System

 

Audio Signal Enhancement

Make use of our specialist expertise and let us develop software and hardware for you to improve your acoustic signals – for audio signals with real added value.

The Oldenburg Branch for Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology HSA was funded from November 2019 until October 2025 in the program »Vorab« by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture (MWK) and the Volkswagen Foundation for its further development.