The radio frequency spectrum around major public events is increasingly saturated, and that saturation is a security liability. Cordell Bennigson, CEO of U.S. Operations at R2 Wireless and a retired Marine Corps officer, told Fox News Digital that the proliferation of drone shows at concerts, sporting events, and Fourth of July celebrations signals how accessible drone technology has become, making unauthorized drones harder to detect. "Detection is the first line of defense," he said.
The RF clutter problem
Drone shows generate concentrated wireless traffic. Spectators filming on phones add to it. Together they create electromagnetic noise dense enough that a bad actor's drone can blend into what reads as ordinary electronic activity to security systems. Bennigson identified that as the operational gap: personnel need to see through the clutter in real time, and current tools are under pressure to keep up.
He called reducing wireless transmissions "unrealistic" as a fix. Drone activity will only grow. The work, he said, has to go into refining what can be detected inside the noise, not eliminating the noise itself.
Radar's limits in urban airspace
The FAA's existing systems function for drones broadcasting their location legally. A bad actor who chooses not to broadcast is a different problem. Radar can detect objects that are not transmitting, Bennigson acknowledged, but it carries its own constraints in urban environments: emissions risk disrupting surrounding signals, and low-flying first-person view drones present an additional detection gap. "Radar is a piece of the puzzle, but it can't be the only tool," he told Fox News Digital. Relying solely on radar and "friendly transmitters," he said, leaves an opening that bad actors can use.
AI and the path to better detection
Artificial intelligence is where Bennigson sees the clearest near-term path. AI can process large volumes of RF data quickly and identify unfamiliar transmission patterns faster than human analysts working in real time. He drew the comparison to night vision: the solution to operating in darkness was never to eliminate darkness, it was to build better capability to see through it.
The challenge extends past individual shows. Bennigson said cities, states, and the federal government will need to rethink airspace monitoring around stadiums, critical infrastructure, and other places where large crowds gather. R2 Wireless, he said, is building exactly that capability: detection that works inside the electromagnetic spectrum, ahead of the threat rather than chasing it.