edu.people.com.cn

An anti-cheating drone has been deployed to identify exam cheats in the Chinese province of Luoyang.

Every year in China millions of students sit a higher education access exam that is so stressful it has been linked to spates of suicides and frequently results in youngsters fainting in the examination room. Known as the "gaokao", the exam is taken over two days, is based primarily on memorisation and determines the course of the young students' lives. It has been called the "most pressure packed examination in the world".


Cheating is a common problem in the examination rooms, with students employing a variety of tactics to increase their chances of getting into one of China's best higher education institutions. Chinese authorities have not released figures about how many people are caught cheating every year, but in 2014 Kotaku detailed some of the equipment being used by cheats to try and fool invigilators. One such method involved using pens to send test questions to a remote location, with answers being sent back to the cheats via in-ear receivers.

This is where the drone comes in, reports Edu People. Introduced by the Luoyang Radio Authority, it can search for and identify the location of radio signals, intercepting the cheating students in their tracks. The drone hovers 500 metres above the test site and has a range of around 1km. When it identifies a radio signal, it transmits the location of the signal to tablets used by staff.

From the tablets, the staff can also control the drone, letting it hover above the test area and then zooming in to help pinpoint the exact source of the signal. Flying nearer to the suspicious signal produces more ripples in a graph documenting them on the tablets, making it easier for staff to identify the signal's source.

"Here, we also advise those people with ulterior motives, as early as possible to give up trying to be cheating in examinations and ideas via radio means," said Zeng Ying Yong, secretary of the Luoyang Radio Authority (translated by Google Translate).

Those caught cheating by the "dragnet" created by the drone could face severe penalties and even be prosecuted under Chinese law. They will also not be allowed to resit the examination for three years.