A few weeks ago I was invited to view a security demonstration by the Clandestine Group in partnership with Excellerate Security, now I know you must be wondering, this is a tech segment so why am I talking about security services? Well its simple, with the advancements in drone technology, its becoming a more viable option for security companies to station drones in large estates or plants for site monitoring but drones are a hot topic of discussion, while many use them for recreational activity and creating content, they are actually quite a power tool that can do so much more than take cool videos and pictures for your Instagram. There also lies a problem, quite a number of drone users are not licensed to fly them, as part of the SACAA (South African Civil Aviation Authority), it is mandatory for anyone who fly's a drone, be it for personal or commercial use, they have to be a licensed operator. While drones do have geo fences built into the GPS's, there is still a high risk of danger when piloting one, even at lower altitudes.
Taking all of this into consideration, the Clandestine group has partnered up with the Starlite Aviation Group, who are market leaders in all things aviation and also provide training for light aircraft and drones. This partnership ensures that all legal bases are covered in terms of the relevant operational licenses and and approvals. The security aspect ties in with Excellerate Security Services which already has a major portfolio with some of the largest and most prestigious estates in the KZN region. How this all integrates is masterful to witness as it was demonstrated to a selected crowd at its launch.
Drones come in various forms and sizes, Clandestine Group have carefully selected ones from the DJI range best suited to the application at hand. The most popular one being remote stationed drones in a docking station that can be flown by an offsite drone pilot at any given time. The offerings range from routine patrolling to spontaneous flights when a breach is detected. While the drones will fly in a pre-determined flight path, all while getting clearance from SACAA, the limitations doesn't end at the point where the drone cannot fly, the drones have high-resolution cameras with high quality optical zoom that can zoom into objects 100's of meters away, it can recognize text such as names on vehicles or number plates. It can also perform infra-red scanning for searches at night, that can pick up heat signatures or tracks left by perpetrators.
In the live demo, we witnessed how the integrated services work, a breach was detected along the fence line of the estate, the drone was deployed to the area of the breach, flying at a height high enough to not attract attention but close enough to keep close eye on them. The on foot security K9 unit was notified and made their way to the area all while the drone was following the suspect. The drone pilot kept in contact with the K9 unit until the suspect was apprehended.
While this was an impressive display, this technology has so much more to offer, for large scale uses as well. With you being able to set up multiple drone stations along a route for patrolling. They can even map and survey the land giving you a 3D point cloud model of the area which can be useful for future development. They are even looking at adding cleaning extensions in the future for window cleaning on high rise buildings and providing scans for building conditional assessments. This is the first of its kind operation in the KZN region and with the backing from big names in the industry, this is something well worth considering if you have a large property portfolio.
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