Spanish telecoms operator Telefonica and partner Unmanned Life have designed a new solution for managing autonomous drone fleets from a single centralized platform to carry out security, surveillance, event verification and critical infrastructure maintenance tasks.
Telefonica said that this innovation will be presented during this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC), to be held in Barcelona between February 28 and March 3.
The Spanish carrier said that the solution allows programming an autonomous flight zone in which several aircraft are able to identify events through analytics integrated into the platform with artificial intelligence. An example would be the detection of unauthorized persons at the site, and the ability to send images in real time for analysis, via 5G.
The operator also said that the solution complies with all aeronautical legal requirements for drone flight and privacy.
The new solution has the capacity to integrate event verification so that drones come to inspect a site in the event of an alarm — in addition to the capacity to detect, identify and neutralize other drones. The solution can detect aircraft at a distance of up to 10 kilometers and neutralize them when they are identified as a threat at a distance of approximately 1.5 kilometers, according to the partners.
Telefónica said its new solution is designed for companies that lack specialized personnel in surveillance and security functions, or for those which want to assign their human teams to perform other tasks.
The Unmanned Life platform, which is hardware agnostic, can work with any type of drone.
To demonstrate the capabilities of the solution, a pilot test has been deployed at the headquarters of Telefónica in Madrid, Spain.
“We are very proud to continue helping companies to face the future with greater security and provide solutions for the protection of its assets, infrastructure and employees thanks to the capabilities of technology. With this solution we not only work with companies as a technology partner, but it also allows us to acquire a consulting role for everything related to the management of drone flights and compliance with regulatory requirements in areas as important as privacy,” said Fabián Blanco, chairman and CEO of Telefónica Ingeniería de Seguridad.
“This is a great first step and a concrete result of our partnership with Telefónica. This innovative product is unique in its style, will set a benchmark in the market and will allow us to demonstrate that it is a secure technology that delivers concrete benefits to users. Together we are building an autonomous future that will improve security and inspections in an optimal, safe and environmentally sustainable way,” said Jorge Muñoz, vice president of business and marketing at Unmanned Life.
