Booz Allen platform uses drones, AI to protect World Cup sites
By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill
As the U.S. prepares to host a number of world class events – including the World Cup soccer tournament and the Summer Olympics — next year, organizers and law enforcement officials are turning to UAV-related technologies to help keep event venues and surrounding areas safe.
One such platform being adopted in several locations, is the Booz Allen Sit(x)® system, which can connect security data collected by drones with other data feeds, to provide on-site commanders and other safety personnel a comprehensive picture of activities in a wide area surrounding a stadium or festival site.
Carl Ghattas, senior vice president of national security and technology consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, said the technology, which is based on the need of law enforcement officers to have broad situational awareness of large areas, will be deployed in five of the 11 U.S. cities slated to hold World Cup matches.
“The technology has been deployed out there and can be used whether it’s for the World Cup, the upcoming Super Bowl or the Olympics, whatever the case may be” Ghattas said.
The platform can integrate video and other forms of data generated by law enforcement drones, with data streams from other sources. The relevant information can then be sent to command centers and officers on the ground who can view it on their smart phones or other portable screens.
“So, if I’m on the street, I can look at my device — it doesn’t matter if it’s iOS or Android or whatever it is — and I can see the positioning of other officers. Ghattas said security personnel can use the platform to get a bird’s-eye view of the stadium itself as well as access a computer-generated digital-twin of the stadium in order to analyze security situations in real time.
“I can see the number of UAS that are up in the air, authorized or unauthorized. I can see traffic flows; I can see all that information that allows me to understand where I need to go as a street agent or a police officer on the street or as a commander in the command post,” he said.
One feature of the Booz Allen platform makes it an attractive alternative for law enforcement agencies and event organizers is its relative simplicity in terms of security personnel being able to rapidly adopt and implement it.
“It can be started up fairly quickly. It can be put on a device of any kind, and it will take minutes for you or I to be taught how to use it,” Ghattas said.
System adapted for counter-UAS application
One potential security vulnerability that has organizers of mass gathering events staying up at nights and worrying is the potential for bad actors to deploy drones to cause widespread mayhem. Drones have been used in combat to great effect in the Russia-Ukraine war, while a number of sightings of unidentified drones have caused operational disruptions at overseas airports and other facilities. Ghattas said the Booz Allen platform can help keep the skies above U.S.-based events safe by tracking and identifying UAVs to determine which ones belong in the air and which ones do not.
“Using the technology, ingesting the data, we can detect drones, we can help identify drones, and we can help track drones as well,” Ghattas said. That information will prove to be of tremendous value to law enforcement as they try to figure out whether airspace above an event venue is being populated by drones and whether those drones are a threat, he said.
“When law enforcement puts up a UAS, we can ingest data from that UAS system so that the user can see where all the drones that are up in the sky. And using artificial intelligence, we help them determine what might be a threat,” he said.
The platform can help law enforcement personnel determine the flight patterns of drones that have been identified as potential threats. The system then uses artificial intelligence (AI) tools to sift through the vast amounts of data collected, and analyze that data in a way that allows the commanders on the ground to make quick decisions about where to position their people and resources in order to deal with the perceived threat.
Numerous events on the horizon
The number of large-scale events slated to take place in the U.S. in 2026 is expected to kick off a decade-long increase in the demand for security solutions driven by AI- and drone-enabled technology, Ghattas said.
“The World Cup begins in June of next year, June 11. We have America’s 250th birthday, which will involve a number of celebrations across the country. We have the Olympics in Los Angeles coming up and after that, we have the World Rugby Championships,” he said. “(There are) a number of mega- events in the next 10 years that will be located here in the United States.”
The World Cup tournament alone will present massive security challenges to security personnel operating across a wide swath of the country. The super-event will take place across 11 different U.S. cities involving 48 international teams, playing 104 individual matches.
“All of those games, all of those venues will provide some significant challenges to state, local and federal law enforcement authorities,” Ghattas said. “And our objective is to support those state, local and federal law enforcement authorities from a technology perspective and provide them the type of technology they need to look through vast amounts of data and identify threats and determine how to mitigate those threats.”
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Jim Magill is a Houston-based writer with almost a quarter-century of experience covering technical and economic developments in the oil and gas industry. After retiring in December 2019 as a senior editor with S&P Global Platts, Jim began writing about emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robots and drones, and the ways in which they’re contributing to our society. In addition to DroneLife, Jim is a contributor to Forbes.com and his work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, U.S. News & World Report, and Unmanned Systems, a publication of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
