Flying drones have certainly experienced a wide-ranging shift in image over the last few years, from consumer toy to potential delivery vehicle to industrial monitoring tool to–thanks to their role in the Russia-Ukraine War–airborne threat.
Operators of critical infrastructure have been becoming increasingly conscious of the threats drones pose, raising the profile of companies like Dedrone, a firm using multi-sensor fusion driven by AI and machine learning technology as key components in airspace security and counter-drone defense, to help combat that threat. Dedrone, based outside of Washington, D.C., describes itself as a provider of counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) solutions, a term often used to describe anti-missile defense.
Dedrone this week announced that it partnered with Axis Communications, a surveillance-focused network connectivity company to incorporate Axis network cameras into Dedrone’s counter drone command and control (C2) platform, which is called DedroneTracker. Dedrone said the system, which can autonomously detect, track, and identify drones with multi-target and multi-camera capability, already has been successfully tested at several locations including Consolidated Edison’s New York City energy facilities.
In fact, Consolidated Edison and Dedrone are scheduled to speak together this week at ISC East, an event focused on the security and public safety community, to discuss how to build a threat assessment and a living security strategy that can rapidly respond to new threats as they arise.
“ConEdison demands a high level of intelligence and autonomy to ensure the safety, security and business continuity of our NYC Energy Center,” said Scott Gross, Facility Security Officer at ConEdison, in a statement. “We selected Dedrone because it allows us to integrate our already existing Axis PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom) cameras into DedroneTracker, enabling the PTZs to provide an additional layer of situational awareness for faster drone risk assessment and better payload inspection.”
Gross added, “Knowing what the drone is, what it’s carrying, and where it is, are all essential to good security strategy. Our successful implementation here in the challenging urban environment of NYC proves the Dedrone and Axis solution can be successful at all our locations throughout the five boroughs and Westchester County.”
Axis’ PTZ cameras, when integrated with Dedrone software, offer both wide-area coverage and high-resolution video. The cameras feed into Dedrone’s AI/ML sensor-fusion system, leveraging the DedroneDNA drone library, to accurately differentiate between drones and non-drones and then identify the drone model. DedroneTracker, continuously and autonomously examines potential targets in the background, then identifies potentially threatening drones, allowing the operator to track and mitigate as needed.
Mary-Lou Smulders, CMO at Dedrone, told Fierce Electronics via email that while the pandemic, subsequent lockdowns, and new climate use cases have been driving an increase in drone usage, the use of drones during the Russia-Ukraine War also has “reinforced this over the last year, and more recently with mass drone attacks that are foreshadowing the future of warfare… Drones so far have played a huge role in Ukraine after first coming to the stage in the Middle East – not just in the war, but in the geopolitics of who’s providing drones to whom.”
She noted that Ukraine “is already deploying C-UAS technologies and as Russia increases its use of suicide drones, these counter-drone techniques will be necessary to prevent the psychological warfare effect of these drones from taking root.” Even within the U.S., security threats from drones are rising, sparked in part by awareness of a 2020 drone attack on a Pennsylvania utility facility.
“While drones have become essential tools for many, they’re also capable of far more nefarious activities if malicious actors take them over,” Smulders said. “Without any way to determine the drone’s operator’s intentions, organizations have unwittingly opened themselves up to a myriad of risks, including surveillance, spying, network infiltration and more. Few protections exist to prevent these intrusions, and ground security is not enough to protect vulnerable airspace.”
That makes it likely that a growing number of military facilities, critical infrastructure operators, prisons, and others are ready to embrace new technology to defend against potential attacks.