# Autonomous Drone-as-First-Responder (ADFR) for Public Safety: How NEOM Is Benefiting from ADFR - Event: NestGen ’26 - Published: October 2, 2026 - Length: 32:32 - Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/_f78QTYskmk/ > 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 Drone as First Responder programs change what a security operation can see in the first minutes of an incident. Standing one up across a site still being built raises different questions from retrofitting drone response onto an existing city or campus. In this NestGen session, AISC will share how NEOM is benefiting from Autonomous Drone-as-First-Responder operations, and what public safety and security teams should think through when deploying ADFR across large, fast-growing developments. ## Transcript **[0:00]** Hello everyone and welcome to this exciting session at Nesgjen. Before we get into today's session, I request everyone for a quick check. I hope that everyone has their favorite and go-to beverage over here because this session is going to be super exciting by the way. Uh let me share my screen again. So in this session right we are going to go into the world of autonomous drones as first responder or in short ADFR and how it is being deployed for public safety at MI in Saudi Arabia. In emergency response the first few minutes are often the most uncertain. The cell comes in, the call comes in, the situation is still developing uh with very limited visibility and the command center needs to make fast decisions. So, ADFR changes that equation by giving teams eyes on the scene before responders arrive, helping them assess **[1:03]** risk, coordinate resources, and act faster. And with NEOM's geography spanning mountains, sea, desert, remote areas, and major development zones, this is not a simple environment. It is exactly the kind of complex highstake setting where autonomous response, command center integration, and realtime aerial intelligence can make a meaningful difference. To walk us through, we're very pleased to welcome Arshad Bari. Arshad is operating in Saudi Arabia has been and has been closely involved in the ADFR program deployed at NEO. In today's session, he'll take us through the public safety challenges that ADFR is designed to solve the solution architecture behind it and how drones are being integrated into command center and command and control workflows as well as CAD systems, live maps, video feeds, AI detection and emergency operation centers. **[2:09]** He'll also share how NEOM is benefiting from this model, especially in improving situational awareness, reducing response time, supporting multi- agency coordination, and enabling more efficient emergency response across a very challenging landscape. So if you're interested in public safety, smart cities, autonomous drones, emergency response, or how drones move from interesting technology to actual command center capability, this is going to be a great session for you to tune in. Just a couple of housekeeping notes for everyone joining in. Please feel free to add your questions in the Q&A tab or the chat box during the session. We'll try to take them towards the end of the session. The session is being recorded and will be shared after the event. So don't worry if you miss a point or want to revisit something later, you can definitely do that. And finally, if you find this session **[3:09]** insightful, please share it with your LinkedIn network and don't forget to tag us at hash #chen. With that I am going to pass this over to you Arshad and uh very excited to hear. >> Thank you Nupor and uh thank you NestGen team for inviting us to do this presentation for public safety. Uh let me share my screen. So can you see my presentation? Yes, Arshad. >> Okay. So, just a quickly quickly introduce myself. I am Arshad Bari working with a team integrated solutions company. Uh we are working in the public safety field for almost last 20 years. We have implemented multiple 911 systems in the region. So, we are very experienced team on when it comes to the public safety and emergency **[4:09]** response uh systems. uh and I will walk you through that why we need a ADFR solution uh today to help public safety to respond faster and provide a coordinated response to any emergency in the region. Uh this solution is catching up in the region. We have deployed at NEOM. Lots of other agencies are looking at it to deploy in the production. Uh we have multiple P going on. So it's really public safety teams are adopting this solution because it's helping them in their day-to-day operations. So the agenda for today meeting is uh the challenge uh we have today with the public safety agency and how the ADFR solution is helping them and architecture of IDFR solution and also how ADFR is working at NEO. So there are some uh known and critical challenges uh public safety agencies are facing today. One of the big challenges heavy traffic in city causing multiple road **[5:15]** accidents, traffic jam and public safety first responder are looking at it that how to reach faster at the accident scene at the traffic jam scene to clear uh the road so people can go people can easily smoothly navigate and drone is one of the solution that can go faster and reach to an accident. People living in remote areas uh they need immediate response. They have medical emergency, they have fire, they have security threats and that needs to be responded very quickly. Uh whereas if you send a a car, a security patrol car, it will take its own time. But drone can go linear and reach faster and give you a first level intelligence response since natural calamities like flooding, earthquake. We all have seen what happened in Nepal where uh the whole area was shattered in fraction of second. Uh all the let's say buildings are gone. Uh we you cannot reach to remote area because **[6:16]** roads are not there now which was there before. Security patrol cars are gone some of them. Your fire station is not there now. Your medical emergency is not there. So how you can quickly uh respond in this kind of situation? And of course the drone is the answer for those kind of situation where you can fly a drone get the first level intelligence and uh put your rescue team in the places uh in the right places to provide the to help people. Mega events there are a lot of football matches going on. There are a lot of uh events are happening all around the world. You have FIFA, you have Expo, you have cricket matches uh that needs to be protected and secured because uh the intense of threat is becoming high and high. Uh in today's world, decision making for public safety is becoming complex. Uh they need real time uh quick intelligence to make their decisions. Uh because the intensity of threat is **[7:18]** getting very very high than even anybody can think of. budgets are tightening across the globe. So there is a huge uh pressure on the public safety agency to reduce operational cost and uh drone is helping them adoption of ADFR is helping them to reduce the operational card cost. Coordination between multiple agency. So in any disaster you have multiple agency who are responding. You have security patrol, you have traffic, uh you have fire uh fire team, you have ambulance uh crisis management team, uh emergency medical services, they all need to get the same level of intelligence uh from the UNCC. So, ADFR is again answer to that that can quickly give a first level video feed that can be disseminated to all the agencies. So, get the first level intelligence uh across the responding agencies. easy to use solution. Uh that's a very critical factor for uh public safety **[8:19]** emergency response teams because they are not very educated. They don't want very complex system. Uh they don't have time to go and do the multiple multiple clicks. So they want a very simple easy to use system where with one or two click they can uh do the operation. So often they ask for one system where they can do all their work and most of the time they use the CAD system and you will see now in my presentation how we have integrated uh the whole ADFR solution inside the CAD system. So they don't have to jump uh between the systems and they can uh do their ADFR operation uh using the CAD system itself. So ADFR uh solution is helping uh enhancing response time, reducing operational cost and improving decision making for uh emergency for for public safety agencies. And it offers numerous benefit to for firefighting team, emergency medical response team, crisis and disaster management team and the police and security team to **[9:23]** provide effective, efficient and coordinated response and shared intelligence across the platform. So what is the benefit of ADFR solution? It provides improved situational awareness to all the responding agencies. You can gain an aerial intelligence of the developing situation in real time. Get high resolution imagery, high resolution videos and that will help you on to see what's going on on the ground and that will help also in your decision making uh that what kind of resources you display to mitigate uh the situation on the ground. First response with ADFR you can efficiently and quickly uh send a drone uh to provide as a first responder while your other teams are driving down to reach to the location. Firefighting drone can help you uh with the thermal imaging to pinpoint the hot spot uh in arbor area in the wildfire and it will ensure you that you are able to uh **[10:23]** protect uh the people the uh the buildings the assets from the fire. emergency response uh in in case of flood, landslides, earthquake, you can get the visual and thermal information and you can take the preventive measures and as as well as you can provide the tactical response uh to the people. Search and rescue is also helping the search and rescue team uh because drone can scan vast amount of area in a quick uh fraction of time and it can help it can pinpoint the people in distress uh the area in distress and uh you can provide the search and rescue operation. Autonomous uh patrol capability. It can do 24 by7 autonomous uh sec surveillance capability for remote areas, critical areas, high-risk area etc. Seamless system integration with the API of FlytBase. We are able to integrate with CAD PCM other **[11:24]** GIS and communication solution to proy to provide a unified uh solution to public safety. So how the ADFR architecture look at it? So in the heart of the ADFR architecture you can see the flight-based drone autonomy platform that integrates with multiple types of drone used by public safety agencies and these drone names are just an example. You can use any vendor drone that is suitable for that purpose and that can be integrated in the drone autonomy platform. So for surveillance we have integrated DJI do 3. For medical delivery is flight kite 30. For firefighting drones, you can use Volca 900. And for long range uh surveillance drone, you can do CW30. But flight based drone autoomy platform is open to integrate with uh any brand of drones and any type of drones that you need it uh for your operation. And on the back is integrated with seamlessly integrated with command and control loop system uh like **[12:25]** on call catch systems where uh which is used uh to take the call from the emergency and provide the dispatch operation uh police fire rescue and all other teams dispatched by the CA system and flight based drone automate platform is integrated to provide a seamless operation of the whole solution. It's also integrated with the VMS system to uh record all the video feed coming out of these drones. For later uh quality control purpose, forensic purpose, you can use uh these drone feeds videos. Uh you can go and check the drone feed videos for quality and forensic purpose. So it's integrated with the VMS to record all the video feed coming in automatically from these drones. So this is a typical example of ADFR workflow where dispatcher will send a dispatch order to UAV flight controller through the FlytBase uh uh fly flight with EUAV **[13:26]** flight controller. Drone w launch to an incident location. Dispatcher can view the realtime uh video feed from the drone. Dispatcher can announce uh using the public address payload and UAV. uh dispatcher can track drone location on the map. It can control the speed. It can control the flying height. It can control the camera zoom in zoom out. All those kind of operation from the CAT system itself. Dispatcher can turn on the flashlight for better lighting at the incident scene. In our area, some of the highways doesn't have the street lights. So, this light is very helpful to provide operation in the remote area. And if you can add a different payload on the drone. You can have a sensor uh to detect the gas leak, pipe leak etc. So it depend on the payload. We can have a multiple kind of use cases in the ADFR workflow. [snorts] So this is the operator control room application uh which is called a CAD application uh that is used by most of the 911 center or emergency response center. **[14:31]** uh you can see the event locations, you can see their patrol units where they are at the same time they see the drone location on the map. So here I have a drone, here I have a drone and also it shows the status of the drone. So green means it's available to fly. If if you if you assign a drone uh to an event, it's the status color will change. So it's very easy for operator to understand that drone is available to fly. uh system can do the drone recommendations uh based on your uh standard operating procedure. Uh system can recommend that you can fly this drone uh to this event. Uh this is uh useful. You can see the drag and drop uh status update assignment of a drone is we made it like a super easy using the FlytBase API and the CAD API. So this is the event location and this is the drone. You can just drag and drop and drone will automatically assign for this event. It will fly to that location and it will start giving you the live feed. So you can track the drone uh you can see now the drone is **[15:36]** assigned. So status has changed from uh green to pink and you can track it on the map that is moving to reach the event location and also you start getting the live feed live video from the drone. We are using FlytBase AI detection box where you can detect vehicles human uh you can count how many vehicles are there how many humans are there and some more features are coming in soon. So with this we provide a fully integrated emergency operation center where uh operator can use CA system to do all his task that needed to perform his work. So now I will give you a use case of ADFR adoption at NEOM and how it's helping uh NEOM in their operations. So this is a NEOM command and control uh center building which is uh providing the **[16:37]** emergency response. So neom has a very uh vast landscape of the area and they have a public safety directorate thorough is uh to this directorate they are providing a multi- agency uh response. So from this center itself they are providing security uh fire and the emergency medical services and border surveillance as well. their juris their jurisdiction is very wide and they have mountain they have sea they have land they have desert so they have all kind of topographic uh areas that needs to be responded so ADFR solution is providing efficient and effective response to all emergency happening in the NEO their response time has improved from let's say 30 minutes to less than 10 minutes uh after using the ADFR because they can fly drones linearly to any location, remote locations in the desert, in the mountains **[17:37]** and get the live feed. They can do the announcement. Uh they can get in the aerial uh view of the area and provide the response accordingly. So it it has uh ADFR has uh has helped NEO to reduce their cost and make their operation more efficient in their challenging environment. So this is a small video that we have uh recorded during the test. Uh they don't allow to take the production video. So this is a test uh video that we have used. Uh so you can see here this is a drone located on the map of the computer dispatch system and it will be assigned to an event and it will automatically go and fly and start giving the live feed from the video. So I can move up a little bit. up so we can see it [snorts] moving fast. **[19:20]** So you can see the drone is being assigned now to an event. The drone camera is operational. Now you can start getting the feed. So this is the event location where drone has to fly and uh give you the intelligence. >> So while the video is playing right Arsha the it's quite impressive what you mentioned as well about the response time and that's exactly what really adds value especially where you need faster response. So it's amazing to see the kind of **[20:22]** program that is being built and I think very interesting that security teams or the EOC team doesn't have to really you know spend time switching between dashboards and they can do this within one setup itself. So that really adds more value to their current operations. Correct me. And uh as I said like uh the public safety operation team they are not very uh qualified uh they are mostly police guys uh and they don't want to jump between different systems. So they want to have one system where they can do the complete operation and adding ADFR as part of their respond team that is very helpful for them from the single application. So you can see >> coming to the going to the location giving the feed. >> Yeah. >> So typically once let's say the video feed uh and the video stream is now available for immediate view. What are the typical workflows that public safety **[21:27]** agencies then take up? Because obviously one part of the problem is being solved using the drones. How is the decision making then taken ahead uh to kind of close the entire loop of a uh incident or a situation that has happened. >> So if it is it depends on the situation. So now drone is there you get the first level intelligence that how is the event seen. Yeah, >> it could be a simple traffic accident uh that you can you can do a public announcement using the drone speaker that hey remove the car we capture your video. So they can remove the car from the street. The street is clear and it can or it could be like a severe uh situation where uh there is a heavy major accident has happened, people are injured, there is a fire in the truck, then you need to immediately assign multiple units to respond. It could be multiple security units, multiple fire units, multiple ambulance units. **[22:28]** >> Typically what happened without the drone that you will send first unit to the scene. It will take let's say 20 minutes to arrive at the scene. Then the guy will tell you that hey we need more support and we need more fire. >> Then you assign more response. So this take like maybe half an hour to reach the whole unit that you need. While that can be with a drone that can be done in let's say five minutes. So >> right absolutely no super interesting uh I think another good takeaway from uh this entire program that a lot of public safety agencies can uh you know essentially uh learn is when you have such a program right the limit is not restricted to just response but you can also have security patrols with the same setup. You can even do a lot of other use cases like if you want to inspect certain areas at your given schedules, you could use the same setup in order to do that as well. So overall like this entire **[23:30]** program becomes much more higher ROI for any public safety agency. >> Yes. And this uh helping them to reduce their cost because worldwide we see their budgets are getting tightened for the public safety agencies. >> So the adoption of drone uh is very helpful for them >> and as we say like you cannot uh you cannot solve the today's problem with uh uh yesterday technology. So the public safeties are forced to adopt the modern technology to solve their today's problem. >> Yes, absolutely. And now with uh AI being introduced into this workflow, it becomes even more valuable wherein you know your detection workflows can be more faster, more accurate and less room for error. >> Yeah. >> Perfect. So thank you so much Arshad. It was quite insightful indeed. We do have **[24:30]** a couple of questions by the way that uh the audience has asked. probably we can we have about 4 minutes left so I can take up some of these questions um and yeah we'd love to hear your thoughts on it so I think on the top the first question that we have received is NEO is being built from scratch does that mean that drone as first responder system was designed into the city from the beginning or was it added after construction was underway >> so it it was uh added after construction was underway. Uh they left they felt like uh lot of challenges in responding to uh their wide area. So they needed some tools to respond faster and fully integrated with their EOC. So that's why we build the ADFR program for them uh to to solve their challenges. >> Wonderful. Great. So the second question is that in a green field development **[25:34]** like NEOM you don't have legacy systems right to integrate with. So how did the ADFR system connect to NEOM's broader security and emergency management infrastructure. >> See that's when the API of FlytBase and CA system comes. So we have a very strong API that can integrate with the multiple legacy system as well as uh the modern system that they are deploying. >> Got it. Wonderful. Okay. The next question that we have received is that for those of us in cities that already exist with existing emergency services and infrastructure, how much of what you have built at NEOM is transferable to a retrofit scenario. >> So every agency has its own SOP and own way of operations. So for example, we are doing multiple P at Aramco. **[26:34]** uh we have uh Sharah police is deploying it across has plans to deploy it across Sharah city uh right >> so drone is an additional uh unit that can be easily added to their current workflow it doesn't replace what they are doing with the police fire and ambulance units currently it does get uh added as a top of all of this to help the operation more intelligently with more AI AI let's say feeds and AI intelligence than they were doing it normally which was very manual >> and time consuming as well. >> Perfect. Understood. Another question that we have I think which you partly answered as well that what's the response time from an emergency trigger to drone on scene and what types of incidents does the system respond to everything or there are specific categories >> it can respond to any uh any emergency happening. Uh you can you might have to **[27:41]** fine-tune a little bit of the payloads. So you can have a drone with multiple different type of payload. So for example, if there is a gas leak or pipe leak, you can have a different drone. If you want to just visual surveillance, you can have a different drone. But it can be helpful for any emergency. Uh the time response is mostly like drone can go linear and very fast. So in within four to five minute it can reach to any area that uh you want to send it to uh you want to respond. So generally let's say for example it also depend on the drone capability what kind of drone you are selecting for DJI drone it can go like six to six to 7 km so it can reach uh in 5 minutes 6 to 7 km area while in today's traffic especially in Riyad if you have to go 6 to 7 kilometer it will easily take you half an hour >> so that's the response time difference we are talking about >> correct absolutely so another question that actually I also get a lot is NEOM is in a desert **[28:45]** environment right with extreme heat and sand. So how does the hardware hold up and what's the maintenance cycle typically? >> So we we hardware is uh you have when you select the drone uh you have to make sure that uh they are like they can survive in high temperature uh they can survive in the high wind uh area. So that's the selection of the drone. For example, DJI do 3 can survive in any weather is military grade rugged ice hardware. So we never have the problem of heat or wind disturbing our operation. >> Right. Absolutely. And when the drone arrives at emergency, so this is another question. What does it do? Uh obviously one thing is it will provide the live video to the command center and it will probably communicate with people on the ground through a speaker or something else. But apart from that like how does AI come into this picture? **[29:49]** >> So from the feed you can count how many number of vehicle are there, how many people are there using AI FlytBase uh AI AI box. Uh also you can turn on the flashlight uh if there is no light so you can have a better visibility of the scene. You can uh so there are two it depends on two thing one is the payload that you are adding on the drone. So you can have any kind of payload and that will help you in the different operations and also how you are analyzing the live feed to get more intelligence out of it >> and flight flight based AI box uh can give you a lot of intelligence out of it on the video feed that you are collecting from there. >> Correct. Perfect. So I'm going to take last question because we're u over by a minute but I think this one is super important. Darshad, Saudi Arabia has its own aviation regulations, right? So, how did the ADFR approval process work there compared to what maybe other operators face in other regions like more mature **[30:51]** markets such as Europe and US? So Ghaka has its own regulation and you have to follow their regulation to get the permits uh to own a drone and also uh the zone that you can fly uh that Gaka is providing to all public safety uh emergency response provider. It had been like if you are a civilian it's bit difficult but for public safety it's uh not that to get a gaka permit and fly your drone emergency response. >> Uh recently with the current situation going on in the region. >> We have seen some restrictions coming up uh even now and then to fly drones but that is temporary uh until this situation gets over. >> Right. Absolutely. Okay. That sounds really nice. Uh whatever you shared Aar it was quite insightful and we really grateful that you joined us and shared insights from your deployment. It's really interesting to see the work that you know a theme integrated is doing in **[31:56]** Saudi Arabia especially under your leadership. Thank you so much again and we really hope that everyone here that has joined in had some good takeaways to take back and build on top of it. Thank you everyone for tuning in. Uh please be seated. We have a lot of more exciting sessions coming up. And once again, thank you Arshad. Have a good day everyone. >> Thank you Nup to have me here and thanks for everybody who are listening to this presentation. >> Yes. >> Thanks. Have a good day.