In this SJUK exclusive, Robert Garbett, Founder and Chief of Drone Major Group discusses the use of drones within UK security.
The UK should look at the drone incursions that have taken place across Europe in recent weeks as more of a reason to invest in robust technology and policy implementation plans to enable Police or Defence authorities to tackle threats head on.
All sensitive CNI and defence locations should be fitted with long range Counter UAS (CUAS) systems coupled with CUAS defeat capabilities placed in strategic locations to intercept all un-registered aircraft including UAS.
Sending jets against such aircraft is a massive waste of strategic assets, so intercept systems are much more cost effective and can deal with large numbers of aircraft.
It should be the aim to intercept on our terms and not wait until they reach sensitive areas.
Dealing with drone threats on our terms, protecting the public, our national security assets and our Critical National Infrastructure must now be a high priority.
Drone technology can now be transposed across two key types of Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).
Firstly, linear transport CNI such as rail, road and energy infrastructure such as pipelines and powerlines and planar installations such as nuclear power stations and military establishments.
Drones can be used for a huge range of applications spanning infrastructure and infrastructure maintenance, security, inspection of assets and delivery of critical tools and spares to staff working on the line.
This could include aircraft carrying advanced sensors to map and predict the need for foliage management or the use of deep penetrating radar to analyse the need for predictive maintenance to sidings or other infrastructure.
Beyond this, drones are well suited to operations over defence infrastructure and energy installations such as power stations and wind/solar farms.
The main reasons for our decline on the global drone stage are a lack of experienced personnel in the CAA to handle requests for BVLOS operations quickly and efficiently, the lack of incentives for investment into technology and the extremely high costs incurred in running a business in the UK.
This is made significantly worse by the appalling state of our Research and Development funding system.
Huge sums of money are wasted every year achieving nothing which drives commercialisation of drone technology.
AI is already playing a key role in the advancement of drone safety due to its ability to process imagery on the edge (on the drone), enabling artificial perception systems to provide alternative navigation solutions to GPS, which is unreliable and easily spoofed or jammed.
Without the trust of the Public, the drone sector will flounder and fail.
This is why the application of relevant safety and quality standards is so important and why I spent nine years of my life and huge resources representing the UK at the International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) developing the very first safety and quality standards for drone manufacture and operations.
There are now a raft of relevant standards available to ensure that drones are manufactured and flown to the highest standards and I would urge buyers to insist on compliance with these standards whenever procuring drone hardware or services.
There have been many myths about the growth of the drone industry in the UK from the belief that small drones would be delivering mail, pizzas and parcels to every household in the kingdom to the drive for autonomous passenger carrying eVTOL systems.
These ideas are fraught with issues ranging from an inability to make them safe to fly the numbers required through a lack of commercial viability to a lack of social acceptability.
In essence, these are fantasy applications which do not solve a problem.
The drone industry is undoubtedly growing, mainly in the defence sector for obvious reasons but also in the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), security and medical sectors where their use not only makes commercial sense but could save lives and improve society.
Drones have undoubtedly proven themselves to be a game changer in defence but what excites me more is the possibilities to reinforce our resilience as a nation.
Advanced systems utilising Digital tethering (TM) are now able to provide rapid reaction to intruders in Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) such as rail, something which costs the taxpayer £M’s every year and every time we sit down with a client, a new possibility for their application in this sector seems to spring up.
What excites me most is the moment that the penny drops that drones could make a real difference to a business, the safety and prosperity of our society.
It’s always a beautiful moment.
