Security Sales & Integration May 2021 - 25

SMARTS & PARTS

IT Intelligence by Josh Akre

Opportunities &
Challenges of UASs
UASs can
respond to
alarms or
incidents in
hard-to-reach
or distant
locations much
quicker than a
person can.

▶ DRONES AND THEIR PROSPECTS of aerial surveillance are no longer an emerging technology. They are already here. As drones become
more mainstream and regulations are refined,
many security sectors are anticipating their own
drone surveillance and drone detection systems.
With incidents on the rise and refined technologies prolonging flight times, drone or unmanned aerial system (UAS) surveillance becomes increasingly viable. This column briefly
describes operational and project-based use cases
for systems integrators and some challenges in
the implementation.

Supplementing Operations:
Incident response
UASs can respond to alarms or incidents in hard
to reach or distant locations much quicker than
a person can. This is a reduction in response time
where every second counts. If a UAS is deployed
during an active threat, security personnel are
not first responders to a dangerous situation.
AI solutions in UASs can track moving targets allowing additional time to respond and gather more
context. Essentially the speed of a UAS paired with
tracking technologies can keep personnel safe and
gather more critical incident information.

Josh Akre is Performance
Engineering Manager at
Northland Controls.

securitysales.com

SS2105 pp24-25 Fireside Chat-IT Intel.indd 25

Supplementing Operations:
Line-of-Sight Challenges
To leverage UAS solutions, an operational arm of
security is necessary to control this technology. Currently all UASs must have an operator that maintains a line of sight (LOS) through the duration
of the flight. This requires either a trained security
force or a professional UAS operator on staff.
With only public safety organizations able to
waive beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) requirements by the FAA, commercial sectors are
likely to operate drones to supplement security operations in a limited capacity. In urban
and metropolitan environments, buildings will
quickly break an operator's LOS reducing practicality; however, in expansive rural environments
where many industrial, oil and gas, and data cen-

jakre@northlandcontrols.com

ter sectors live, a UAS may be the quickest and
safest method to respond to an alarm.

Project-Based Surveillance
Events or temporary locations provide a unique
challenge as security measures may need to be
deployed and decommissioned to secure a rented
space. An end user's security standards will likely
dictate how event security is deployed and a project-based supplemental UAS program provides
an additional layer of security.
Some manufacturers sell drone operators on a
per-event basis so the end user does not need to
train their staff and can still secure the premise.
Aerial surveillance can provide coverage in areas
where temporary cameras cannot be installed
due to infrastructure deficiencies or landlord requirements. This increases the resiliency of event
security as an operator is on standby with a UAS
ready to respond.
UAS Programs
The threat landscape is increasing as bad actors
can identify vulnerabilities from building rooftops
with their own UAS. Security footage will not tell
you if a UAS belongs to a hobbyist or if it is carrying a payload to spoof a corporate network.
UAS activity and conversations are increasing
across many industrial sectors and these security
programs will either be implemented proactively
or reactively. While a proper risk assessment is
needed to see if a UAS program fits within a security schema, consider the following questions:
▶ Are your sites in metropolitan or rural environments?
▶ Will a UAS be used for routine operation,
incident response or project-based use?
▶ Can your program support the infrastructure to charge and deploy a UAS?
▶ Does training or hiring a UAS operator fit
within your program?
▶ Is your program equipped to identify or
track UASs?
▶ Is it equipped to quickly respond to dangerous incidents?
▶ How much risk you are willing to accept?
The logistics of implementation, varying regulations and cost of deploying an aerial surveillance program will delay overall UAS adoption;
however, security programs will likely invest in
detection technologies as an introduction to operations with UASs.
MAY 2021 Security Sales & Integration

4/16/21 11:31 AM

http://www.securitysales.com

Security Sales & Integration May 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Security Sales & Integration May 2021