{"id":456926,"date":"2026-02-06T04:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T04:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/456926\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T04:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T04:46:14","slug":"developing-anti-drone-weapons-at-home-experts-weigh-in-on-bizarre-ontario-explosives-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/456926\/","title":{"rendered":"Developing anti-drone weapons at home? Experts weigh in on bizarre Ontario explosives investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 5 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

Engineers following the case of four people who face criminal charges for storing materials that police allege could be made into explosives say it\u2019s \u2018not unusual\u2019 for scientists to have home labs, but cite a slew of safety concerns about what they’ve seen.<\/p>\n

Jerry Tong, Zekun Wang, Fei (Frank) Han and Feiyang (Astrid) Ji are charged with possessing high explosives and manufacturing firearms, among other things, following a days-long search of their London, Ont., home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The probe began after a trespassing call that police received from Western University on Jan. 24, 2026, which led them to the house in the nearby University Heights neighbourhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a video posted to YouTube three months ago, Tong, Wang and Han explained they were in the process of designing a military system meant to prevent drone attacks and that they were seeking funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re taking on the challenge of stopping weaponized drones,\u201d said Tong in the video titled MORSLAB Pitch Presentation. \u201cMORSLAB is in the right place at the right time, and we hope you can join us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LeftJerry Tong, Zekun Wang and Fei Han appear in a YouTube video designed to pitch the weapon system to prospective investors. (Jerry Tong\/YouTube)<\/p>\n

Tong goes on to say that the team runs a garage CNC mill and has its own \u201cchemical lab on site.\u201d The video also includes clips of Wang working on the system in the bed of a pickup truck that CBC News has verified was parked at 212 Chesham Pl., where police have been investigating.<\/p>\n

Ji does not appear anywhere in the video.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I can speak for engineers who are new grads. It\u2019s pretty usual to start from your own garage, building whatever you need to build,\u201d said Parth Mahendru, who is the co-founder and CEO of Toronto-based Prandtl Dynamics, which also creates drone defence technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahendru said he started his company out of his small condo when he was in his final year of engineering at the University of Toronto, before moving the project into a co-founder\u2019s home garage in Oshawa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AParth Mahendru is the co-founder and CEO of Toronto-based Prandtl Dynamics, which creates drone defence technology. (Submitted by Parth Mahendru)<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to save money, you start small and validate the idea, and as soon as you get a product market fit or you gain traction with customers, you move into a facility,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving said that, it is definitely not usual for you to keep firearms or chemicals in your garage. That\u2019s just not very safe in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was the London trio developing exactly?<\/p>\n

Mahendru said there is an appetite for anti-drone technology, and there are many different techniques that engineers are using to create them.<\/p>\n

The MORSLAB pitch video contains multiple renderings and animations of the weapons system, and the accused claim that it is capable of tracking and dispatching the drones by destroying their on-board electronics with bursts of microwaves radiation.<\/p>\n

Kyle Davidson, who served in the Canadian Army for 15 years and is now the founder of Ottawa-based counter-drone company Agile Electromagnetics, watched the London trio\u2019s pitch video and said the explanation checks out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not too dissimilar from your microwave oven at home, where if you were to put metal in the microwave \u2026 it sparks,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AA screenshot from the MORSLAB pitch video showing a rendering of the proposed drone defence system. (Jerry Tong\/YouTube)<\/p>\n

Davidson said that wave weapons can be projected at a drone and interact with the tiny copper wires inside, either confusing the computer system or physically melting the wires.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour little computer doesn\u2019t work anymore and that drone falls from the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahendru agrees that the MORSLAB team\u2019s explanation of their microwave technology sounds legitimate, but he said that it doesn\u2019t explain why they allegedly had explosive chemicals or firearms in the residence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat perplexed me a little bit,\u201d he said. \u201cIn my opinion, there\u2019s no real use for them having those chemicals for their anti-drone systems. I think that might\u2019ve been a side project of some sort.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou [also] would not need bullets for any of those, so it doesn\u2019t really make a lot of sense for them to have firearms,\u201d Mahendru said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Safety questions and concerns<\/p>\n

Davidson, who also started his company in his apartment, said defence materials are \u201chighly regulated\u201d and said there are concerns if the accused did not follow safety protocols.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad that the police or someone else has interfered and put a stop to this because those three students, regardless of the criminality associated with it, were probably doing things that were putting their safety at risk,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"APolice have been investigating inside the residence at 212 Chesham Pl., in London, Ont., since Jan. 24, 2026. (Alessio Donnini\/CBC)<\/p>\n

CBC News reached out to the Department of Defence, as well as Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, about safety regulations but did not receive a response from either before publication.<\/p>\n

Davidson said he had to provide 60 days of notice to the Department of Defence to test his company\u2019s systems, and get approval.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All four of the accused remain in police custody, with bail hearings scheduled in London court in the coming days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

London police are expected to provide an update on the investigation at a media conference Friday morning. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-456926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}