# Blending Human Patrols & Autonomous Drones for 24/7 Perimeter Security - Event: NestGen ’26 - Published: October 2, 2026 - Length: 29:39 - Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/_3VN7BrvCNE/ > 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. ## About this session For security service providers, the challenge is not only detecting incidents, but doing it consistently across multiple sites, shifts, and patrol models. Autonomous drones are opening up a new layer of perimeter visibility that can work alongside guard teams rather than replacing them. In this NestGen session, Titan Protection will share how human patrols and autonomous drones can work together in a blended security model, and what that means for coverage, response, and service delivery in real-world guarding operations. ## Transcript **[0:01]** Hello everyone and welcome to Nession 2026. My name is Pranjul and I'm part of the solutions engineering team here at FlytBase. Absolutely grateful to have you all here with us today. It's been an incredible day across the board session spanning oil and gas, mining, public safety and programs running across in the session. So in this session we'll be talking about parameter security physical sites and how uh docs can be deployed in these scenarios. So today's session is blending human patrols and autonomous drones for 24/7 premier security. And that word blending is really the heart of it. This isn't a story about drones replacing security guards. A lot of what we have covered today has been about the aircraft endurance sensors autonomy. This one's different. It's about how a human team and an autonomous fleet of drones can actually work together as one operation day and night. **[1:01]** Before we get started, I would love to know who is joining us today. Please drop a quick note in the chat letting us know where you're joining from and what aspect of drone security interests you the most. If you have any questions, please drop in the Q&A tab and we'll tack them tackle them during the end of the session. And this session is being recorded. So if you miss anything, don't worry. We'll send a copy to all registered attendees afterward. So joining us today is Thomas Kerry, automated operations manager at Titan Protection and Consulting. Thomas spent 26 years with the Oland Park Police Department before moving into physical security leadership. Since joining Titan has built and scaled the drone security program from the ground up, growing the pilot team, expanding deployment across multiple states and running the day-to-day operations that let Titans guards and drone work as one coordinated system, all under the only beos of its kind in the country. Please welcome Thomas Kerry, automated oper operations manager at Titan Protection. Thomas, welcome to **[2:06]** Nion. Always great to have you. >> Thank you so much, Pangel. Yeah. >> Okay. >> I think uh I can share your screen and uh introduce yourself. >> Yeah. So, hi everybody. I know some of you were probably expecting Ryan who was originally supposed to be here but a little under the weather. So, um I am pinch hitting for him today uh to talk about how we're not just operating drones but using them truly as a force multiplier to get the most out of your uh security force. So, um, [clears throat] slide. So, here, uh, Prrench already hit on all this. Um, I've been in the drone space for going on six years now, starting with the police department, coming into Titan. Um, I also hold a CPP, the certified protection professional through ASIS International. um which really leads to the security mindset which we will hit on a little bit **[3:09]** later on here in the presentation. So if you're here watching this, you know about the drone part already. Um either you're already deploying them yourself or you're looking into it enough that you're watching this. Um and initially when starting this up, you know, the drone was the difference. Um but really the drone is no longer the differentiator it originally was. Uh the platforms have matured. Docs um can launch autonomously, charge, very reliable, um very weather resilient and commercially available. Anybody can get them. Um and and the different platforms aren't usually the difference. We are drone agnostic. We fly a lot of different platforms for whatever works for our clients. Um, and then the waivers, which used to be the milestone getting your BV loss waiver. Those approvals still take time, take a little bit of work, but that path is known, and really it's a **[4:15]** very, um, repeatable process. Um, it's definitely more of the starting point now for a real drone program. So really, what's the difference between drone operations and security operations? Well, when you're just operating the drone, a drone service provider flying the missions, flying the operations, handling the waiverss, the FAA compliance, all the hardware, the maintenance, the firmware, but when you're flying them for a security purpose, you need to have those security operations as well. Um, and that's the discipline that a lot of people underestimate. So the threat assessment uh a system design and with that we mean you know it it's being designed not just for flying all the time but effective patrols um how are we handling what we see that's the biggest thing that security operations brings to this. The drone can see it but who needs to be notified? Does it need to **[5:19]** be law enforcement? Uh does it need to be 911? And then after the fact, are we handing the video over for evidence? Are we holding on to our ourselves? And then also that 247 staffing. Uh we already had a sock, a security operation center in um in use for several years before we started in with drones. That gave us the framework of constant staffing, the location, the desks, all that, the 247 availability that's necessary. And beyond that is just the availability is the accountability, being able to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. But really, it is all about that next step. Who is going to use that information to keep property safe? So three pillars but one hard problem. Companies can build them in in-house and **[6:19]** we've seen that with physical security as well with guarding industry. Um but once regulations, staffing, liability, all those headaches start hitting for real. That's when a lot of places decide to outsource. So software and hardware, the docking station, the drone, the mission planning software, your C2 software, all of that. FlytBase obviously is one we use a lot that helps us with making one to many reel, giving us a single operator, single pilot that can fly multiple client sites at the same time. And obviously the regulations, uh, part 107 now, part 108's coming eventually. um the airspace coordinization, airspace authorization. Um it's obviously very necessary to keep track of all that. It's also usually not very efficient. Um but just casually trying to maintain that isn't going to cut it. And then the sock, the **[7:26]** operation center, that 247 staffing with redundancy, accountability, all that that's necessary to put a fleet in service. Um, this is where the a lot of the in-house programs stall. Um, and this is where we're built to scale up because we already have that framework in place. So, it turned out the waiver was kind of the easy part. Uh it was a obviously a big milestone for our program when we got it, but what we've learned since we've started putting it into action is um detection isn't plugandplay. Um I mentioned we're drone agnostic. We fly a lot of different platforms and there is no single pane of glass. Um every component has its own piece. Um, and we've already dealt with that with the camera industry, with trailers, with all these remote operations that we've put out there. Um, so we've already got that framework of knowing it's what you got to work through to figure out. And then one to many is **[8:31]** harder than it looks, especially when it comes to security. Um, it's one thing to fly one to many when you're doing grid missions for mapping, but when you're depending on a person to notice if something's happening, um, that makes it harder. And that's where the AI is absolutely necessary. If we're going to be watching multiple drones, multiple sites, we need that AI to alert us, hey, something is off here. You need to investigate. And that's where the operational headache that is the business. That's what we do is we take that over for the client. So we're looking to shift that risk cost and those headaches. We'll take those over by handling things like the liability, insurance, all the compliance, privacy, and data protection. Obviously, that's a big one. Privacy is a big deal right now in the security industry. And then making sure we're maintaining that chain of custody with **[9:32]** audit grade records. We want to be sure that if the FAA comes calling, somebody comes calling, we can give them all the information that's necessary. The cost, so a total cost of ownership to build your own over 3 years is going to be about 1.67 million for equipment, waiverss, operations center, staff, all that. Whereas drone as a service really is about, you know, an eighth of that at 27,000 all-incclusive. Uh, no capital outlay, no hiring, no op center. We take care of all those headaches. So those headaches like the hiring, training, retention updates, regula, regulatory, um, keeping track of TFRs, that's something temporary flight restriction, that's something that uh, that can trip up a lot of people. And we saw that during uh World Cup here this year. Um so these are the problems we under our model seek to solve for our clients. So some of the real world case studies we have here. Um the first one is a **[10:39]** abandoned housing facility that has been slow to demolish due to asbestous. Um and so they've had a lot of issues. it's made the news and so they reached out to us and we've been patrolling it with the drone. Um it's about 42 acres. Um and then >> here's the charred remains of the latest fire this past weekend at Parade Park Homes. According to the Kansas City Fire Department, it's the fifth one since residents moved out in late October. >> We've shared with the developers that the fires are unacceptable, that we need to make sure first that they're securing of the property and then demolition. While parts of Parade Park are fenced off, not all of it is. But there's wide open doors on many of the abandoned homes, as well as trash and leftover belongings on the property. And it's a safety concern for Kansas City firefighters who've been called here to fight fires five times in the last five weeks. >> And that number has actually gone up quite a went up quite a bit before they brought us in. Uh since they've brought us in, it's been I believe since February, **[11:45]** so we're going on 7 months now. Um there's only been one fire at that location. Um and our drone has actually caught uh a fire. Uh we launched, we could see a fire burning in the entryway. And what has happened is the area where this is is a lower income area and it's attracted a lot of transient population that have used these open buildings to try and find shelter, fires to keep warm or cook food and then it gets out of control. It's been slow to demolish because of asbestous abatement. Um so that's where we've come in with the extra patrol we provide with the with the um drone. And this is a great example of a drone being a force multiplier because we are using all three phases at this site where we have perimeter detection from cameras, uh, patrol response from our armed officers, and working together, we've been able to catch a number of people there and greatly **[12:46]** reduce the number of criminal incidents happening, all while actually saving them money over what they could have been paying otherwise. and that's a just a great example of what we've done that where a we get an alert go check for a person, find them, and then help uh keep overwatch on our officers who are dealing with the person. It serves not only as safety aspect, but for clients, it's another method of um oh goodness, I'm losing the word, but of making sure we're doing what we're supposed to. So, accountability, that's the word. **[13:47]** It's another level of accountability. We're able to watch these interactions and make sure people are behaving appropriately. And that's another one from that same site where we're getting to these intruders and then we're able to get them off uh property before they can do any damage or before they can create any issues. This next one's a little more interesting. Broad daylight, same site yet again, but this person's trying to strip some resources from the site. **[15:14]** And really all of this is just great examples of the drone as a force multi. supplier. With that, with using the drone, we're able to get by without having to have guards necessarily stationed there 24/7, thus saving the client money. We're able to use the drone to locate and then bring in the officers as we need them. Another good example of this that shows uh the power this can have is a group of car dealerships we have here. Um they had 10 major incidents in the seven months before with a loss of 75 to $150,000 for each one. Um they were had to hire two officers. So we brought in the drone um perimeter coverage and automated response and patrol with AI. um reduced it down to one officer on scene along with the drone and we were able to **[16:16]** drop this down from you know about a million dollars in the previous 7 months to $100,000 in the time since we've installed which has been a year. um and reduce their overall cost versus for having a drone versus having two dedicated officers. Here's an example of the patrols we do at this at this site. Uh this corner here to the left in the dark there is an on-ramp which was a common pain point for them. Um, as you're going here, you may notice somebody walking right there off to the edge. Kind of hard to spot there. That's actually our officer out doing a foot patrol, but just showing how they do work together. Also, one's not replacing the other. It really is when we're responding together that all **[17:18]** of this is most effective. Uh, once again, this is a same site. uh the infrared camera. You can see that one car was super hot. Obviously been running. Once again, that's ours. But over here, that dark on-ramp that was causing issues. Uh we're able to see it quite clearly with the with the infrared camera on the on the drone. And here's one where the drone located an intruder, uh, followed them, and then also captured the interaction with the officer. Like I mentioned earlier, offering that extra layer of accountability of showing a professional interaction and capturing it all on video. Uh, it would seem this person does seem to know they're being followed by the drone. Uh, not super thrilled about it. Uh but this is the middle of the night on a you know campus where we're being paid to keep people that aren't supposed to be there. **[18:22]** So we follow him until he gets off property and that's when he's gets intercepted by one of our officers who further reiterates that this is not the place you want to be tonight. But while we're doing this, also we use uh speaker and spotlight combo on our drones that allows us to talk down to a person. You in the black shirt, you're trespassing on private property. Leave now. Um or even spotlight them so they know they're being watched. And it also helps with safety for responding uh security or police officers. It allows them to illuminate, see exactly where the subject is. And then also a good visual u make sure they don't have any weapons or anything of that sort. But as you can see we get all the way up to the end here **[19:24]** and this person you he tells them you can't be here. Guy walks off. Everybody in safely and we go about our night. So what we have on here, we have put together some white papers talking about that max uh maximizing the coverage using the drone and the um officers that combination maximizing that using the drones, how it can effectively um expand your coverage without you know greatly increasing your budget. And then also uh a lot of people have concerns about the weather feasibility when it comes to drones. Um while each generation of drone gets better at its resistances, we did put together a white paper to show state-by-state breakdown on how we can fly. **[20:29]** And that's it for me. any >> y >> yeah like like thank you so Thomas so much for sharing your presentation and that's actually an incredible amount of ground that you've covered there and you know how you take care of the hardware and the operational aspects in conjunction with you know managing the security guards and basically you know providing an end toend solution combining both of them right the human aspect and then the autonomous aspect and I think this actually solves a lot of challenges for people who really want to get into you know such kind of 247 monitoring right so yeah that's really amazing and we we have you know a few questions in the chat so I'll read out you know some of them and you know we can take those uh so one question we've gotten is how do you handle the handoff when the drone finds something real does the guard get a live feed or a radio call from the command **[21:34]** center for the dispatch? >> That's a great question. Yeah. Um, we are able to share a live feed um using the using FlytBase. We're able to share a link with the officers directly. Uh, we'll usually send that via a text message um something along those lines. Uh, we our operators sit with our our drone operators sit with the sock operators. So they're in the same room, so they're able to communicate directly. Uh some situations, it's better to handle over the radio. So we're able to do that by speaking back and forth and they radio the officers and that way we're giving them real time updates. >> Understood. And so so I think you mentioned that in there in some sites there are you know guards that are present but in some sites there might not be. So uh like do you have systems in place for notifying you know let's say authorities **[22:35]** uh as well. >> Yeah absolutely we do um part of our onboarding process is we determine what the client wants us to do. Obviously, if we see something a crime in action, uh we're going to make that call right away pro to local authorities. Uh we've had some clients that said barring a crime actually happening, they wanted to be called first. Um so we work that out and we have a system in place to keep track of all that. So we're make sure we're doing what the client wants. >> Understood. Another question is you've been approved by one too many operations by the FA and for uh those of us in the security industry what does the approval process look like and you know how many operators uh are you guys managing today? Right now, we um have a full-time staff of 12 uh drone pilots with a uh number in my bullpen, if you will, my backups **[23:40]** to help cover leave and all that. Um to get one to many. Um, biggest thing was just being able to show that concept of operations that the system can handle it and we're [clears throat] trained to handle it. Uh, so what we're training on is, you know, if we're flying more than one, which one takes priority, the ability to send one home if the an incident happens at at another. Um, and being able to do that efficiently without putting any more undue risk into the situation >> that that's a great answer. Now, next question that we have is when you want to have a real integrated drone as a service and uh like future DJ products like doc 4 uh not being available are will they become a problem and how are you planning to uh tackle that moving ahead? >> Um as I said we're drone agnostic we will fly what works for our clients. Um, we **[24:46]** have a stock of the threes [clears throat] ready to go, doc 3es, and we've been deploying those and operating those. Um, so we're confident in our ability to stay up with what we've got. Um, but we're also, you know, keeping an ear to the ground on the whole situation to make sure, you know, we're prepared to keep operating for all of our customers. That's that's great. Uh another question is uh you know while you know you're deploying for uh many uh companies which industries are you seeing you know deploying more of these autonomous uh security solutions all around. >> Yeah. Uh really liked that one that was featured at the when we talked about the real life case studies, those largecale construction projects, especially for like multif family um apartments, condos, those types of things. Um when it's a longerterm **[25:52]** uh project like that that's covering a large area, uh we have found that a lot of success in those types of situations. um corporate campuses, um really anywhere that has a lot of outdoor assets that are difficult to cover. Uh you know, those types of situations, but really that that multif family construction area has been a big success for us so far. >> Understood. Yeah. Um and um I think we can take one final question as well. So when it comes to you know demonstrating actual return on investment to customers what approach do you guys take? Do you have any metrics that you usually share of your security you know operations and how do you define um that the system is actually you know providing value to the customers >> right? Well, it's being able to look at how they can redeploy their **[26:55]** man staff, the the officers, um, and get more coverage without having to either hire more. >> Um, because everybody's dealing with, you know, higher cost, staffing, >> all that. So it it really the biggest metric is just showing that we're able to be in the space, you know, affect the the incidence of criminal activity and potential criminal activity while they're not having to add more staff or >> uh more, you know, large scale camera systems. >> Yeah, definitely. And um as you know uh usually traditionally you know the pilots used to fly drones now we have all these people in the command centers right. So they have gained on responsibility of you know security operators not just drone operators. So I just wanted to know you know how are you making sure the pilots and **[27:58]** the operators who are controlling the drone are up to date uh with you know security aspect of things. >> That's part of our training process when we bring somebody in. >> When I hire people they already have their part 107 certification. So I know they know the drone operations. So we're teaching them okay this looks suspicious that looks suspicious. how to address it and then how to investigate something. Um, and then, you know, if it's legit, all right, we move on. But keying in on that behavior that is out of place um that is usually associated with criminal activity. >> Yeah, that's uh amazing. Uh Thomas, thank you for such an insightful session. You've shown real numbers and real incidents, right? and genuinely useful way of thinking about what actually matters beyond the hardware. It's the entire system and the infrastructure that you've set up within the within the site and automated and **[29:00]** humans working together to get uh to the security operation. So, u thank you everyone who has joined in the audience as well and sent such great questions. If you'd like to learn more about Titan, you can find them at dpsecurity.com. And once again, Thomas for your time uh in the session. Hope you guys have a great day and enjoy the rest of session 2026. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah. Thank you everyone.