The police commander in charge of policing drone protests intended to shut down Heathrow airport has said his officers will take any opportunity to pre-emptively stop activists from causing disruption to flights.

Activists from Heathrow Pause, a splinter of the environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion, have vowed to shut down the London airport on Friday morning by flying small drones within the 5km exclusion zone.

Their action is specifically against plans for a third runway at the airport, the UK’s busiest and the seventh-busiest in the world. They say the protest has been scrupulously planned to ensure no one will be put at risk.

The Metropolitan police deputy assistant commissioner Laurence Taylor said protesters taking part in the action “can expect to be arrested” and police would be looking at “all the powers and options and tactics available to us to prevent disruption”.

“Obviously if we have an opportunity to do that proactively we would look to do that,” Taylor said, while refusing to be drawn on what powers or laws his officers would rely on to arrest activists.

“We have got tactics in place to detect and identify drone usage. I’m confident that we have got a plan in place that will prevent the activity they are proposing.”

The planned drone action at Heathrow comes about nine months after Gatwick airport was in effect disabled for three days after a number of suspected drone sightings in its exclusion zone.

Extinction Rebellion activists had originally proposed drone action at Heathrow in April, but the plan was abandoned after it threatened to split the group in the midst of a major protest action. The idea was then revived as an attempt to promote Extinction Rebellion-linked candidates during the European elections in May, but no action was taken.

Protesters are planning to launch the first drone at 3am on Friday morning before the first departures and arrivals are expected at Heathrow. A number of activists plan to fly small toy drones at around head height in various locations around the Heathrow exclusion zone.

Organisers say they plan to give Heathrow an hour’s notice of each flight, giving authorities the option of cancelling any take-offs or landings while the drones are in the air. Each activist will phone the police after completing their flight and wait to be arrested.

A spokesperson for Heathrow Pause said: “We fully understand that we are going to be arrested and we are going to go to prison. That is the purpose of our action and the reason we are doing it is because we are in an ecological emergency, and the building of a third runway will contribute to a crisis that risks potentially billions of deaths. And so our consciences dictate that we have to take drastic action within the bounds of remaining strictly non-violent, whatever action it takes, in order to save humanity from ourselves.”