If enemies of the U.S. launch drone attacks on American soil, how can we protect potential targets?

A study aimed at answering that question is well underway at Virginia Tech.

“I don’t want to sound alarmist, but we’re probably due for something,” Eric Jacques, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, told WTOP. “I think raising awareness, building in good principles of structural engineering, structural design to protect against these possible threats is important.”

It doesn’t take deep pockets or a sophisticated expertise to launch deadly drones, but the technology used to bring them down, including interceptor missiles and lasers, can be very expensive.

That’s why Jacques is leading a research effort in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to find more cost-effective ways to protect power plants, bridges and other critical structures from potential drone strikes.

“What we’re talking about is passive protection; trying to make a site or facility that’s harder to approach, harder to target and less vulnerable if it is attacked,” Jacques said. “It’s an investment you make once, and then it does its job waiting for hopefully an attack that never occurs.”

Jacques said that protection could look like a false roof, or blast-resistant windows.

“That may mean planting a bunch of trees and putting up nets, or even putting false targets around a structure to make it look like an attractive weak point when, in fact, it’s really not,” he said.

The researchers are working to take principles of defense that may have been used in the past to prevent car bombings, and expanding them to address the three dimensional threat posed by drones.

Jacques said the research work started nine months ago, well before the start of America’s war with Iran.