One of the key traits of AES that has allowed us to succeed for so long is our desire to constantly innovate. This is reflected in the advanced solutions we have in our product line, especially our drone solutions. A couple years ago drones used to be seen as just a hobby, but this has quickly changed as drone adoption has become widespread. Now we are confronted with a world where malicious actors have an advanced, affordable device that can inflict harm in many ways. At the same time, we have seen organizations see how drones could be used for their safety.
Drone Detection & Mitigation:
Today, all it takes is a quick Google search to find and purchase a drone for just a couple hundred dollars. This ease of obtaining a drone and lack of enforcement to obey the laws dealing with them has allowed individuals with malicious plans to get ahold of them. These drones can carry weapons themselves or accidently can even fly in the path of a plane. On top of this, it is a perfect tool for espionage and hacking, as it can carry devices like a Raspberry Pi while also being able to film people and property.
Our solution to this was partnering with the best funded and most advanced drone detection company we could find, Dedrone. Our Dedrone RF Sensors are capable of finding all drones within a specified radius around your site. The sensors pick up the RF, Wi-Fi or other forms of waves being emitted by the drone. Once detected an alert will be sent out and the software will collect data on the drone as well as the time, day, and sensor the alert came from. With the correct set up, localization of the drone and pilot is possible. While in the USA it is still not permitted to do anything to the drone, foreign customers have the capability of using Dedrone’s Jammer Gun which would incapacitate the drone and safely bring it down.
This solution is perfect for many different industries, especially those in sensitive industries, such as, government, energy and utilities, data centers, healthcare and more. An example of the power of this technology is reflected in a proof-of-concept we did for a large pharmaceutical company. During the month it was there, we were able to see the same drones were frequenting the property. The most amazing discovery was when the company itself had a huge announcement, the day of and after the announcement, there was a huge spike in the number of drones that came onsite.
Drones for Security:
While many were just starting to look to drones as a fun activity, other innovative minds were seeing how effective they could be for security. While having dozens of outdoor cameras on a site does offer a lot of security, a drone can see all they see and more. The view from the sky is unbeatable and can go where is needed easily. Drones can go where humans can not and respond in a faster manner.
Seeing how effective this technology can be we searched for a company that offered an advanced, autonomous system that was US based. This led us to Easy Aerial and choosing them as our manufacturer of our SAMS drones. Our SAMS drone was built to take the burden off security for running an effective security operation. The base model is an autonomous unit that can respond to alarms/sensors set off around a site, do pre-planned missions, and can be taken over manually. The drone will be in the air within 5 seconds for fast response. The drone is housed within a 4’ x 4’ enclosure where it takes off from and will land itself for recharging. This eliminates the need for a guard to sit there and be ready to charge the system. There is also a tethered version of our system that allows for 16 plus hours of flight and is great for constant surveillance of areas of interest. Both systems are capable of being place in the back of a pickup truck, allowing for the easy movement of the drone for all situations.
While this is a great technology for the same industries mentioned for drone detection, the use cases for this are even wider. For example, one of the first installments done by Easy Aerial was to solve a problem at a military base. The issue was the base would get an alert that a ground sensor went off and would have to send a unit racing to where it happened, even leading to accidents in some cases and a lot of times it would just be an animal. To fix this the SAMS drone system was installed and now reacts to the alerts instead of sending guards out at night. Another example of how we have been able to use this technology is when we helped maintain security at a Fourth of July even for a NY police department. By using our tethered system (SAMS-T) they were able to keep watch over everything going on at the event.