Flock Safety introduces new security product for private sector
By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill
Flock Safety, a leading developer of drones as first responder (DFR) programs and other security technology for law enforcement is rolling out a technological solution to meet the security needs of non-law enforcement customers.
The company recently unveiled its Flock Aerodome Drone as Automated Security (DAS) system, which gives private-sector security teams the ability to quickly launch a drone in response to a security breach at a power plant or a break-in at a retail store.
In an interview, Keith Kauffman, Flock’s Safety’s senior director of DFR Strategy, said the new system employs cameras enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI) and drones controlled by human operators to replace static cameras and alarm systems, to not only observe an incident in progress, but also to respond to it.
Currently, most security camera systems can only capture an image of something out of the ordinary taking place with the footage being used for investigative purposes after the fact, he said. Flock Safety’s new system gives system owners the ability to not only observe the incident, but also to respond in near-real time.
“Instead of having fixed cameras at many different locations and trying to cover all the angles, you now have a camera in the sky that can pick up different angles in order to be able to see things very quickly, and then provide the ability to show that feed live to anyone that’s responding.”
Flock Safety plans to market the technology to customers responsible for keeping secure sites with a large physical footprint, including critical infrastructure sites such as transportation hubs and energy facilities, healthcare campuses, warehouses and logistics sites, and big-box retail locations.
According to a company statement, the system will employ several docked drones, with each dock capable of covering a circular region of up to a roughly 3.5-mile radius, an area of about 38 square miles. The drones can stay aloft for up to 45 minutes, enabling the system to provide a rapid response across for an extended time.
The system features operator-initiated, automated drone flights “In response to a camera or audio alert, an operator clicks one button to dispatch the drone. From there, the drone autonomously flies to the incident location, providing live HD and thermal video for real-time verification and response,” the statement says.
New customers still can retain their existing security systems. The Flock Aerodome DAS system “seamlessly integrates into business’ existing common alarm panels, video management systems (VMS), and access control systems.” The system can also work in harmony with Flock’s other technology such as License Plate Reader vehicle alerts via FlockOS.
Kauffman, who was part of the team the launched Aerodome before it was acquired by Flock Safety, said developing a product for the non-law enforcement market has been a longtime goal of his.
“We were building the product and using it in a law enforcement environment to figure out ways to quickly respond to 911 calls and get out ahead of the officers,” he said. Flock Safety became one of the early developers of DFR systems now widely used by law enforcement agencies across the country.
But since his early days with Aerodome, Kaufman had always thought that the introduction of a DFR-like system could also provide a great benefit to the private commercial sector. Following Aerodome’s acquisition by Flock Safety, a company with customers in both the law-enforcement and private business worlds, Kaufman said he was tasked with making his long-held goal a reality.
“So, I started talking to many private-sector customers, seeing what it was that they were interested in and what they needed. And the reality is that for the crossover, there’s not a lot to be done,” he said. He found that both law enforcement agencies and private businesses were hoping to accomplish essentially the same mission.
“The best way to describe it, or at least the way that I like to describe it, is when we’re looking at safety and the response to different things, there’s this timeline of — something happens, there’s some sort of triggering mechanism,” he said. “Generally, what happens next is there’s some sort of human response. Either it’s a security guard or it’s a local law enforcement, or maybe a fire department.”
He said the Flock Aerodome DAS system cuts the time it takes to respond to an event from minutes — the time it takes a human to arrive on the scene of an incident — to seconds with a drone response.
Deployment stage of new technology
The new Flock Safety system relies on Part 107-certified pilots operating under FAA site-specific approvals and waivers, including beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) waivers where applicable. Flock Aerodome DAS operations comply with all safety and regulatory standards including geofencing, obstacle avoidance, precision landing and full flight logging.
Kaufman said Flock Safety already has sold the new system to several private-sector customers, although none have yet gone live with it. The company’s customers run a range across a number of business sectors, from manufacturing, to distribution, to security.
“It’s basically anybody that is using security guards or camera systems to protect their property,” he said. “Anytime they’re using those technologies, this is something that can supplement it.”
The new technology also can be used in the aftermath of a natural disaster, such as a hurricane or flood, allowing a property owner to survey their property for damage when it might still be too dangerous to send a human inspector out. It can also be used for routine inspections and to detect potential problems, such as an overheating air-conditioner on the roof of a building, Kaufman said.
It can even be used to deter shoplifting; if a suspect exits a store with stolen merchandise, the drone can be dispatched to follow him or her onto the street, and track to see if the suspect gets into a vehicle. This information can then quickly be relayed to the local police. The distance that a Flock Aerodome DAS drone can travel from its home base in pursuit of a suspect is determined by the FAA waiver it’s operating under.
Most private-sector customers will seek to secure a waiver to allow the UAS to fly beyond the geo-fenced area of their parking lot. “They want to be able to have the ability to follow a criminal away from the location to allow for enough time for their local law enforcement to affect some type of enforcement action,” Kaufman said.
Some civil liberties groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have raised concerns over technology that was developed for law enforcement purposes being deployed by private companies, but Kaufman said those concerns are unwarranted.
“I was formerly a police chief and dealt with the privacy concerns of not only my citizens, but anybody who was concerned about the use of technology,” he said. “It’s not only that protocols that help with privacy concerns are built into the technology, but they also need to be built into the standard operating procedures and policies of anybody that use this technology.”
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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.
