# Advancing Security with Remote Pilots & Autonomous Response and Patrol

- Event: NestGen ’25
- Published: March 7, 2025
- Length: 30:39
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/0ip710wGq34/

> The transcript of a recorded NestGen session, for reading or for use with an AI tool. It comes from the video's
> captions; automatic captions can mishear names and terms.

## Transcript

**[0:20]** hello security enthusiasts and Tech Trailblazers welcome to NES 2025 I'm deep Gupta your guide for today's adventure into the future of security we're about to explore how remote pilots and autonomous drones are redefining patrols and response mechanisms so buckle up it's going to be an exhilarating ride before we dive in let me introduce our esteemed speaker joining us is Ryan Smith the Visionary founder and president of Titan protection with over 20 years in law enforcement Ryan witnessed firsthand the challenges of traditional security measures determined to make a change he founded Titan prodection to deliver top not secur solutions that blend human expertise with Cutting Edge technology under his leadership Titan has become a Pioneer and integrating drone technology into security protocols offering Innovative and cost-effective services now to ensure a smooth session here are a few

**[1:20]** pointers you can engage with us if you have any questions drop them in the Q&A box anytime we'll address them during the Q&A segment session recording if you can't take your notes fast enough no worries this session is being recorded and will be available for you to revisit and capture your favorite moments and share them on social media with the hashtag n225 who knows you might win a surprise now let's set the stage imagine a security system where drones autonomously Patrol your premises responding to incidents in real time all overseen by skilled remote Pilots sounds like science fiction right well it's today's reality thanks to like Ryan Smith Ryan could you kick things off by sharing how Titan production is leveraging drone technology to enhance security operations absolutely all right let's get started here you able to see the screen there yep I can awesome well thank you very much uh to the entire flight based team I um

**[2:26]** you know presenting this got a peak behind the curtain and saw the amount of work that uh that goes into this so certainly appreciate uh the entire flight based team and and humbled to be here good morning to everybody uh and I say good morning here in Kansas City um but I know many are spread out throughout the world it's another thing that makes this event quite unique um you know from time zones different time zones different parts of the world so appreciate everybody joining in and yes today we are talking drones and physical security these are two pack passions of mine and and have been very fortunate in my professional career to put these two things together I have been flying single engine piston plane since I was 14 years old and also from a professional standpoint had always had aspirations of law enforcement and and became a security officer when I was 18 worked in that capacity through college and then went into the Police Academy when I was 22 so I've been in law

**[3:27]** enforcement and in security ever since um and continued to you know enjoy Aviation and and have been flying drones since uh since 200 12 and and really trying to figure out how to put these things together in a security aspect um ever since then so my goal today and my hope is to share what I've learned along the way um Titan protection as a company we are based in Kansas City uh Missouri right in the center of the United States and have grown I started the company in 2008 with a a focus on physical security but more specifically blending security officers with technology and blending highly trained security officers at that but uh our company is about 600 employees we have a video monitoring Center where we monitor several thousand cameras across the country um and that is what we call remote guarding um and we blend that with the physical perspective so fits right into to what we're talking about today with drones and and how we put all of that that together remote assets

**[4:32]** and and anything um Outdoors is kind of what we protect and what we specialize in so that lends itself very well to um to drones and and and blending security so when we when we're talking about drones and security they perform primarily two functions we are patrolling looking for some type of activity that may need response or need need action or the Drone is triggered or responding to a triggering event which may be most cases it's technology driven it's a you know a camera a photo beam a um radar uh perimeter detection system you know it could also come in the form of a call for service from security Personnel from you know a member of the public but typically when we're talking about these um response capabilities they're typically triggered by some sort of technology so when we talk about autonomy as well um you know we're

**[5:33]** specifically talking about what levels of autonomy and that can vary right because we want the Drone to deploy autonomously Patrol autonomously but we still have a human in the loop um for for many reasons one currently we have you know one drone pilot to one drone we anticipate that will obviously increase to a one to many eventually nto many but even in the nto many scenario we still feel it's important to have a human in the loop one for who's going to respond and take action once the Drone detects something but also in an emergency capability um so that's kind of the the role that we fill and what we focus on as remote Pilots but as far as autonomous response and Patrol there's you know kind of some bullet points there that detail what um what's involved in that and what's the capabilities can be manually overridden um if needed we want the the Drone to operate as autonomously as possible possible but it is you know sometimes needed where if they see something maybe an

**[6:34]** operator needs to pause the mission take manual control investigate something um in more depth and and then certainly if there's some sort of emergency issue or loss of of communication or GPS the pilot can can take uh take control so that's a breakdown basically of of the two functions when we're talking about this in physical security when um we are talking about this some of the benefits and some of the things we see are clearly a response time uh increase uh availability for the Drone to respond and Patrol um very quickly um another great use case is accessibility to areas that are difficult to get cameras to or for human officers to patrol uh very good opportunity for the Drone large areas are certainly someplace that the Drone shines um but also and I think that it can sometimes be thought of of you must have

**[7:36]** a large area for the Drone to be a viable option and and and I would disagree I certainly think that that's an area where it excels but I don't think it's limited to you know maybe a a car dealership or um you know other properties that that aren't necessarily large but but you could make a case for and we'll talk about that in a little bit um in more detail um so when we are talking about use cases Property Management multifam car dealerships transportation and outdoor assets really encompasses anything that we're trying to protect that's outdoors and that can be equipment people you know cars parking lots those types of things so um basically we're talking anything outdoors construction sites critical infrastructure these are also areas that um that lend them M themselves favorably to a drone application and we're also seeing kind of blend uses for this right we might have a construction site that

**[8:37]** wants to use the Drone for security measures at night and then operationally during the day we can perform all sorts of in of functions equipment monitoring um you know grading for soil project management um and and that is a really good use case and especially allows for different budgets to get involved right we can use the security budget for the nighttime security the operational budget during the day and and can kind of help open up some budgets and and um lend itself to to these types of of applications but um so not just a security it may be the primary function um and it may be in addition to some of these others some of the numbers that we're seeing um that I think are important you know 30 40% reduction in security incidents and that's the overall goal right from our perspective intervention you know deterrence is the ultimate goal we want this to um you know to deter we want to be fire prevention not fire fighting whenever we can so

**[9:38]** seeing those types of numbers is certainly very positive response times being a key indicator and in in one that we're seeing a lot of success with and then the big one is is the cost savings um over traditional security um and and Beyond the cost you know even arguing Effectiveness and and how we're patrolling and responding to incidents on a property but just to kind of paint this picture from a cost perspective traditional security officers you know looking at the typical use case where maybe somebody has a security officer overnight um in areas where nobody should be and that's another um important point that that this is really helpful and really useful in areas where nobody should be because the mere presence of a person um could dictate suspicious activity or action needed but so in this scenario I'm showing we've got 84 hours a week which is basically 12 hours 12 hour shift seven days a week say an 800 pm to an 8 a. type of thing we're looking at $113,000 a month as compared to the Drone

**[10:39]** Security package at $6,100 a month um you know around a 60% cost savings and for an in this example what we are using is a mile perimeter and in this case it's a radar system that puts a mile perimeter around the property anytime that's breached the Drone then goes and invest at so it it takes that and and you could make the argument or look and sometimes people will say well you're cannibalizing your security officer business by implementing this technology and I'm a very firm believer in blending the two and getting the most coste effective and the most effective security means that are out there so you know the traditional security officer that may be out there for 12 hours a night how often are they patrolling how alert are they able to see different areas of the property where for over half the cost we can get a a a virtual perimeter around this property and then be able to know when somebody or something goes inside of it and then go and and and investigate that on top of that that's including three preventative patrols flying

**[11:41]** around the property looking for suspicious activity maybe this is used during the day uh when there's activity on the property good preventative Patrol looking for suspicious activity and then at night we're using the um the detection equipment so just from a cost perspective painting the picture of the difference between the two and you know one of the the exciting things about right now is a lot of these pieces are coming together when I've been following this for the past decade you know we needed certain things to make this a reality and now we're seeing that um you know come into play those being very simply two main things we needed a a viable means of Beyond visual line a sight right now drone piloting is is um you know the FAA requires that the pilot have visual l a site while it operates the Drone for us that takes away the autonomy or or the cost savings the ROI of removing the person from the from the scene um and then the other thing we needed were docking stations to launch land the Drone as well as charge if we had to have a person on on the ground

**[12:46]** and and really nobody was making docking stations until recently because without Beyond visual line of sight the docking station was not needed um if a person had to be there to Pilot the Drone they could launch land change batteries and a docking station wasn't needed so as we're seeing Beyond visual line of site come together we're now seeing the proliferation of docs which is sparking you know a bunch of use cases but primarily you know that we needed these two things for this to be a reality in the security space and and very exciting that we're finally here we received last year uh we're the first security company to receive a nationwide Beyond visual line of sight waiver which allows us to scale this uh much more rapidly you know the waiver process has existed for a while but for us to scale this with customers it was challenging to go sight by site get a waiver expense time everything else that was involved so with that out of the way and now docking stations this is a reality and and something that's here today and and is very exciting to um to see and and use and um especially after all the years of waiting

**[13:49]** but um so with those things together and now the pieces are in place you're thinking about maybe putting a drone program together for physical security and uh well we'll recap here kind of what is involved with that and what types of things you should be thinking about when putting a program like this together the big one that comes to play on everybody's mind is compliance and Regulatory you know what are the laws that govern drone flights talked a little bit earlier about part 107 currently um requiring Vision law in a site that's how Pilots are getting licensed under that um that rule we are hopeful that soon that's changing to part 108 which will govern remote piloting and we're you know hopefully getting the notice of proposed Ru making and and that's becoming a reality although it seems that by the time that comes to a notice of prop proposed Ru making we still have about another 18 to 24

**[14:49]** months for that to work its way through the regulatory process and become law until then we're governed by the waiver process and it seems like we will be um at least in the near future uh beyond that then then we're you know the consideration is pilot training and Licensing um making sure Pilots you know pass their tests stay current on training licensing this can can become a challenge especially we've seen a lot of customers who may rely on the guard force to be their visual observers on the ground they get them licensed as Pilots maybe um and then we're seeing turnover and how do you manage okay Dave was our drone pilot now Dave's gone who's handling this that rolls into Fleet Management you know part of our waiver dictates or mandates that we maintain um AC according to the manufacturers guidelines for maintenance so if that stipulates that propellers are changed every 100 hours or batteries are swapped out or different pieces of that um there's got to be a robust way to track that that gets into recordkeeping and and

**[15:53]** in ways that you're following that that becomes important especially as you're expanding the fleet um and then privacy another consideration when we first started talking to insurance carriers about policies on our drones I kind of thought that they were going to be most concerned with the Drone falling out of the air hitting somebody on the ground and really what their main concern is is how are we storing images how are we training auditing ensuring that our operators aren't zooming into the apartment complex across the street and looking at a window or those types of things so a consideration for sure when we lump that into uh compliance and Regulatory uh and then you've got a remote pilot uh Operation Center and so you know one of the arc um recommendations or they put out the recommendations for for Beyond visual L of sight one of the things I didn't see was any sort of reference towards redundant internet uh and power backups our Monitoring Center is U listed we have a power

**[16:53]** generator we go through testing and all sorts of things and I think the worry or the concern there is what happens if you''ve got a drone or multiple drones in the air you lose power um you know these are things to think through as well as shift coverage making sure that licensed Pilots are always on what's the contingency if if somebody calls in sick what's the backup plan uh privacy recordkeeping certainly and then software management that's a big one and one that we lean on and use uh and see a lot of value in the FlytBase oper uh operation is how do you get one paint of glass where you're operating all this and then more importantly when you're talking about response and detection systems how do you tie that all into one piece um and so software and you know software can go into recordkeeping but primarily Mission planning how are we operating these drones and then computer and phone Management Systems um certainly something to consider and I would say that going from you know no Operation Center to remote pilot is a bigger leap than going from maybe you have

**[17:55]** a remote operations or a security operations set up and you're thinking about introducing Pilots into that um I think those are very different lifts in the in the sense of um you know standing up a program um and then we're talking about challenges and limitations and these are things I think to go Eyes Wide Open to when we're thinking about this from a security measure or just a drone program in general there will be times when the Drone is unable to fly uh wind resistance you know I see a lot of Manufacturers will say the Drone can fly in 40 mph winds and then somewhere you might see but it can only land in the docking station in 20 mph wind so if we're using a dock or we're we're deploying these things remotely you know really look at and and the dock seems simple and and I was one that thought what's so hard you just make a dock it's a box that opens up and goes up and down but the key and the challenge with that is precision Landing how do you get a drone to land in the exact spot that's going to match up where it needs to charge and then also

**[18:55]** while it's battling wind and different considerations like that so when you're looking at Endurance on a drone I'd really keep in mind or or look at what is the you know wind resistance that it can land in endurance factors for flight times that becomes impactful most of the missions we're seeing are 10 minutes or less or around that depends on the size of the property and the complexity of the mission but um most of the time you'll have plenty of endurance to fly the real consideration is how often you want to fly it if you want it to fly every 30 minutes every you know then be considerate of how much time it needs to be in the doc to charge backup Power Systems being another one um to consider and and um and then the ndaa compliance that could be a whole another session and and I certainly won't um you know dive into all of that but it is definitely a consideration um when you're picking and thinking about um deploys drones and which ones to deploy we have critical infrastructure customers that you know are sensitive and and need

**[19:58]** an NDA compliant we have other customers that that may not be that high up on the list um another reason another great partnership with FlytBase we use the um air device the artificial intelligence appliance that uh you know will help and add people and in vehicle tracking and and detection as the drone's patrolling but the other aspect is it sits in between or can sit in between in the on Prem solution the dock the network and provide some really pretty robust cyber security measures um so these are all things to consider and definitely that one is one I I won't go into great detail on but certainly a very big conversation to have if you're thinking about um using or flying drones and then Additionally you know we want to look at these things is this the main security component or is it one layer of many and I think the argument could be made for for for any of the above although the application budgets threat picture those types of things are going to dictate how

**[20:59]** much security you need but I think the point I wanted to make here was be Eyes Wide Open to the gaps if we know that wind is not or that the own is not going to be able to operate in 25 M hour winds then we need to be eyes wide open to that and know okay are we comfortable with The Gap when it happens or do we need to backfill that somehow with security patrols Personnel other security means um so something to think through for sure Last Mile you know we in remote guarding use techn Tech ology to you know do the heavy lifting go through the the hay stack find the needle raise it to us but then there's still that last mile somebody needs to pick that up and and take it to the finish line and we need to know who that is is that going to be the client the Personnel um is that going to be the police is that going to be audio intervention something very powerful we use speakers on a property we call somebody out by clothing hey you and the red shirt leave immediately or be arrested police are on the way um so we need to think that response piece the Drone can do very well

**[22:02]** but there is that last that last mile that needs to be addressed somehow and talked through um as well as contingency plans disaster that type of thing big consideration here um you know when you're thinking about a program like this is do you do it yourself or do you do you Outsource to a provider like us um that does it and kind of listing the differences here and I think this is application specific and and I think what we're talking about is headaches liability and cost and you know is there a use case to bring all three of those in house or is there a value in Outsourcing that and so kind of on the left in the DIY section you kind of see some of the costs although I think this is light on the cost I mean just looking at the UL certification I know you know the the the initial certification was somewhere around $115,000 but then you have all the pieces on the back end that you need to comply with that you know we had $150,000 power generator

**[23:04]** uh we had to redo some processes some locks some different things so um I would say I think some of these costs are low but but you know considerations and then as the Drone as a service option this is something that the customer pays one monthly payment all of these things are included and then now you're Shifting the liability you're Shifting the headaches and you're reducing the cost greatly um by doing so so defin itely something to consider um to Think Through I think there's use cases for both um and just as a cost comparison um you know I think you're well over a million dollars if you're looking at a three-year cost comparison or or cost for an in-house program and then um using that example that we had before just comparing drone as a service um you know you're a fraction of that cost so definitely some things to consider and that was a very high level um overview of of security and drone program we certainly go deeper on uh on several things we did put a white paper together

**[24:06]** I'll leave this up for just a second uh before we open this up to to questions but um feel free if um if you're interested in in dive in deeper or or one any of those topics more um we do put that uh in a bit more detail through that white paper there and uh deep with that I uh I'm through my slides and and ready for some Q&A if you have any sure sure uh thank you so much for you know the informative session Ryan that was like really amazing to see how you are you know helping people out and helping like different different companies businesses and Enterprises for you know providing a service with a remote Operation Center so we have quite a few questions from people around so I'll just start uh with a question from Alexander and he mentions like he asked basically can you like explain a practical scenario wherein you know this comes in very handy like let's say an alarm rings up and then you send a drone like can you like explain a practical situation and then also to add to that question do

**[25:07]** you think uh this service will uh complement to the security guards the current uh Personnel on ground or will it replace them so what are your thoughts on that so to the second question I will say that's application specific and would depend on a bunch of factors the size of the property the threat picture what type of thing what are the expectations if we are looking at simply we've got an area where nobody should be and we want a means to detect that and Patrol that I think you could make a case for replacing the security Force but again you know I think that that when we talk about remote guarding we really look at the detection and the response and maybe we filter in some patrols with with physical security officers where they're stopping in checking locks you know visibly Det ing seeing maybe escorting employees as needed um but then more importantly just having somebody available to respond if we remove the guard force and we have that last mile you know I really truly think that the blend

**[26:10]** of the two is is the key to success um on the first point you know a use case example the one that pops to mind right now or or you know top of mind is is transportation if you can picture a fenced lot where you're keeping semi trcks those semi trucks are backed in where the back end is against the fence line so we can use fix cameras and we do we you know we monitor anytime there's a detection it pops up in our Monitoring Center and we can take action from there the challenge in transportation is the thieves come from behind the fence they cut through the fence and they're right into the back of the semi trucks and they can hit several and and they can go undetected because maybe the camera is is on the building looking out towards the fence line the trailer obstructing it then you get into the complexity of cost of power internet to put a camera on the fence line or perimeter and so you may be able to use mobile units solar units and kind of get bits and pieces of the

**[27:11]** property whereas now in the Drone model with the detection as the the you know the response part of the autonomous response control we can put the virtual perimeter around the fence now anytime somebody breaches that the Drone investigates and so we get a more holistic protection of the property we're not just relying on the security officer to patrol and maybe catch them when they're on the other side it turns it into a very holistic um means of protection that uh that gets the entire property and by the way at a at a fraction of the cost of the other traditional me uh you know measures that have some gaps in them yeah yeah I completely agree with you on that Ryan so I think we'll be able to take one more question as of now because we have to wrap up the session in the next 2 minutes so Ryan how do you think um AI uh like the AI which is coming up right now how will it you know transform as in the Drone industry how are you planning to use it with your practices as when so so even though I believe very heavily in the human in the loop

**[28:11]** and I think that that is always going to be a piece of the puzzle you know from a from a operational standpoint we want operators only involved with actual incident so we want the technology to do the heavy lifting to go through the hay stack find the needle and raise it up so that's where artificial intelligence comes into play and you know I've been involved with video analytics since um you know 2008 and it's been interesting to see how far that's come and to now see it done on a moving scene right because video analytics can can recognize pixels and do all sorts of different things but then you introduce a moving scene into it and seeing how well that works and and for our standpoint like I said you know eventually we want to go to nto many where the drones are flying around and then only tell us when there's an issue um so artificial intelligence and autonomy is is um certainly crucial for our our business and in our mission understood understood so I think we have one more good question so are there

**[29:15]** any payloads that you're currently using with your drones like search light spotlights and what are your plans on using them great question so as I mentioned earlier the audio intervention is something that's super powerful and we've seen you know loads where you're having lights and you're having um speakers on them and I may be wrong but I haven't seen any yet that fit in the dock and that's where for us I think becomes uh important in a game changer because I think that adds all sorts of capabilities that make this you know the the the lights and the speaker specifically um right now what we're doing is we're still putting the speakers up on the property so maybe it's not on the Drone but you put 120 dbel speaker on the property um or in strategic locations we can can still get that audio of intervention but that's going to be a layer that that greatly increases um our capabilities as it as it's able to be encompassed in the the dock understood understood so uh yeah I think we are you know pass our time Ryan so thank you so much for sharing your insights and thank you to the audience for you know engaging

**[30:18]** with us and your questions so everyone stay vigilant stay Innovative and enjoy the rest of NestGen 2025 thank you everyone thank you appreciate it good