# Guarding Italy's Railway Construction Zones with Docked Drones at National Scale

- Event: NestGen ’26
- Published: October 2, 2026
- Length: 28:26
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/qh2tfPaU5a4/

> 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

Railway construction zones are long, spread out, and constantly changing, which makes them hard to protect against theft, trespass, and damage with fixed cameras and ground patrols alone. The challenge grows when the same standard of security has to hold across an entire national network.

In this NestGen session, AI View Group will share how docked drones are being used to guard railway construction zones across Italy at national scale, and what security teams should think through when rolling out drone security across many sites at once.

## Transcript

**[0:01]** Hi everyone and welcome to an exciting session at Nesgjen. I am Nupur by the way and I am going to be the host for this session. So today's session I want to start with a very practical question. When we talk about drones and security, are we really talking about adding another camera in the sky or are we talking about changing the way security operations run today? Because in critical infrastructure, especially environments like railway networks, construction sites, distributed assets and sensitive areas, the challenge is not just seeing more. It is about detecting earlier, responding faster, documenting better, and doing all of this safely, repeatedly, and in compliance with regulations. That is exactly what we'll be covering in this session. And I'm very pleased to welcome Nicolola Marietti, CEO of AI view group and ENAV group company. Nicola

**[1:02]** brings deep experience across ICT security solutions and robotic automation and AI view group sits at a very interesting intersection airspace management, UAS oper operations, digital services, compliance and operational control centers. Today, Nicola will walk us through how drones can become a part of a complete security ecosystem. Not just as flying sensors, but as an operational capacity supported by governance, certified processes, trained teams, live streaming, mission management, evidence, reporting, and compliance. A quick note before we begin. Please keep your questions coming in in the chat or Q&A box as Dola presents. I'll pick up a few during the discussion towards the end. The session is being recorded and will be shared after the event. So please do share your takeaways and learnings within your network using # neesgen.

**[2:06]** With that over to you Nicola. >> Okay. Thanks for the for the introduction. I will share uh my screen as soon as possible. So let's start this uh this session. Uh we talk about the one of our biggest projects project in in place from one year and a half based on uh railway construction site very particular for the uh dimension of that and the and the customer needs. But before starting with the uh with the with the project just I want to uh introduce uh uh myself and and my company just a little bit. So I'm Nikol Maretti CEO of H group. I group is uh 10 years old more than 10 years old company uh in the drone market operation. We

**[3:07]** are based in Italy but we work around the world uh with many partners and activities based on our uh common contract drone common control center. From March of this year we entered in a bigger group. So we are part of ENABN is the Italian uh ice management company. So the the company will control the higher space in terms of planes. Uh and it's a good a good uh opportunity for us because we can match the higher level of the flight with the low the lower level of the flight. So higher plane drones uh between us. So between the plane and the drones there is another company of the group that is deflight. The flight is the uh chisp USB uh US space uh company. So it's the right connection for the regulation uh of the

**[4:08]** of the l traffic drones uh area uh the fight enable uh and integrate the u operation. So really important for us because starting from the operation and starting from our platform I will talk later about the the platform is the enable enabler uh for us for a regulatory space that is the new thing that the customer are asking for. So uh be safe uh in in terms of operation in term of compliance in terms of regulation of the flight that they do or they provide to vendors and the drone operators. IV group uh is the leading company in Italy about the operation with drones from 20 and 23. We started our operation also based on a contract command center. So we started

**[5:11]** the remote operation in Italy mainly focused on highway at the beginning and now for different things. go from uh from security that's the the topic of today to bushfire management around around eur Europe uh our control center is a 24hour control center and we manage a fleet of drones both of us our or both of the customer uh not only do drone but also piloted drone uh that are uh put in uh in the in the network uh with the with with our platform. If we go to the to the project uh that's the customer challenge. I cannot say about the name of the customer but it's a it's a big construction company in Italy who built highspeed railway

**[6:12]** uh highspeed railway. uh the the the site is a really huge site because it's more than 100 kilometer uh long. Uh it's a and a big area in the in the in the north of Italy. Uh the requirement were are mainly uh focused on the integration between uh the uh on ground security based on sensor and guardians patrolling by by car the the the site and the drones. Uh secondary the the most important challenge for for us is not to put some drones around but to to manage in a in a compliance way uh all the operation H24 uh all the day uh and the reporting and the management of the fleet in uh compliance with with the

**[7:13]** national international uh rules. Uh the objective of that of course is to prevent uh theft and act of analy that in one hour one year and half of project has been around 30 40 time. So a lot of a lot of a lot of u of of heavens catched and stopped by by our control room in cooperation with the with the with the guardian one because it's a we started in a no standard scenario. So so it's a it's a big environment and not specific scenario. uh we used our LU uh because we are one of the few LU holders uh in in Italy and I imagine also in Europe for

**[8:13]** uh managing drone from a common control center. So our look uh has been the the key point of the the food project. Uh because uh uh we with the look we have the ability to uh to perform and to manage the flight by by ourself under set rules uh agree with the with the national authority and and the other of course. And so we um planned [clears throat] every preparation of the nine fly the nine dogs uh under our uh constraint of our of our look. This a a good one. Um so the governance uh the the system are managed by by our nuke uh platform name it ready uh in which we save every every action every communication every assignment uh every checklist every mission

**[9:19]** that we perform with uh with our drones of the drone of the custom plus uh we in have integrated the uh uh request for the high space uh access with the national UTM USS PDG flight and so we performed uh another step for the US space environment that's the situation in place today uh the project started in July 25 uh we put the in place the project in 10 days So in a very very very fast fast way and the drone as you can see in the in in the picture is the high sensor for the security uh a security control room uh was already there and so we integrated with our platform ready the security control room with the information coming from drone it's

**[10:23]** a bid directional way so the the sensor uh send information. I send the event to the security platform and the security platform send the event to us and we can start the the right run near nearest nearest to the to the sensor or during a patrolling. We send the real time uh in live streaming uh to the control room and we communicate with the control room through the platform or through their communication system when we check for for for an event. The the solution is a completely integrated solution. And the bene the main benefit of the solution is of course the the ability to to have a large field of view in the day in the night of the situation. But uh we agree that the one of the most important thing is the

**[11:29]** usage of the drone during the management of the event. So the drone can form can give to the to the police uh many information regarding the uh where the thief is, how many they are, where are hidden, where they are escaping. So many information that are also that help also for the security of the operator data on the on the field that's our platform. So this is one of the of the nine doc and we have the total control uh thanks to the integration with the firebase that's represent for us the component control uh the common control uh part of the of of the project. Uh we developed an orchestration uh between FlytBase and uh and our platform that is fly

**[12:32]** that help us to collect all the information and transform the information in the way we need to um record and to lock uh for for our compliancy with the with the national and the ESA rule and LU LU rules. So we we rebuild a little bit the the structure of the information with a with a with a goal to be compliant with all our procedure. So after a flight we can you can manage all the all the log of the flight and we can also analyze with uh some algorithm written by us if on different flight uh something happen in terms of even in terms of preventive maintenance in terms of lack of motor batteries or something or something like this. So many information that help us to be uh safe in the

**[13:34]** operation uh to be uh to have the the situation clear know exactly what is the the planning of the operation the operation in place what is happening what's happened uh because with the LU of course we are independent in the in the authorization for a mission but we have the audit for uh from from the national authority in the ASA on our on our way to work. So we need to demonstrate that everything is is compliant with with the approved approved rules. That's uh a part of uh uh ready ready platform in which we can uh plan uh all the mission uh and we can manage our look book. we can manage our system, the maintenance of the system, but not only this but also the training of the pilot, the safety management

**[14:36]** system, the compliance management system. So, the ability to have a complete uh understanding on the uh safety health of the of the operation and the organization in uh in in general. Uh that's a a a short a [snorts] short video. Let me uh pass through. Okay, that's happened at two or three uh nights ago. And so uh this is what Aduran can uh uh can can help. Uh no one can see this because there are no uh no fix camera, nothing. It's a 100 kilometers. So a very a very very long infrastructure. And with a drone we can perfectly understand what is happening. They are trying to t uh something. They are they are collecting places. There are three people. They are

**[15:39]** moving in in certain way. They came from from the left. So many information and all all those information are real time uh in the control room and we can share as you know uh with uh with external through a specific link and we can exactly understand what the idea of these people and where they will they will escape after uh after they they've rubbish. So we blocked them. So uh it's it's another good uh good action from uh from from from the drone and that's our data >> daily daily job coming back on the on the presentation just to give you some number those are number uh from uh uh February of this year so from uh uh June of uh 25 to February 26

**[16:42]** and that's the number that we performed during this project. So a lot of kilometer flume uh many take off and landing. So >> really really a lot and also the the the flight time the the the drone are still alive. [laughter] We will close the project in uh uh I think around December because it's the time frame for the for the construction sites to be uh to start uh the the operation there. So to to be delivered and uh uh what's the story uh about the project and the and the next future we saw that uh uh for making big project with uh the enterprise company we need to start from a strategic partnership with them. We are not we have we are not vendors of a technology vendor of a solution vendor of a service. We are a partner of them and if

**[17:44]** they believe in us uh we can deliver a complete uh implementation of uh and uh a project that can be scalable uh on the on the Google infrastructure and that is what is happening in real time because I think we will talk in the next next grand next year uh we will have a big news about the extension of this project and uh the new use case that uh are has been uh put out from uh from from the customer after this uh after this experience. So from my side thank you very much for for your attention and now Nicole I'm ready for for some question. >> Thank you so much Nicola. It was indeed quite insightful. We do have a few questions that uh of course the audience wants uh you know to hear your thoughts on.

**[18:48]** However, before we move on to it, something that I personally wanted to ask you was you know the the approach that you have in terms of strategic partnership. I think that's a great way to approach and deliver you know the use cases as well as what the customer really wants rather than treating it as a typical vendor buyer relationship in that lines what I do want to know is let's say a security leader or an enterprise leader in the critical infrastructure space or construction space wants to move to you know drone operations be the loss operations today but they don't really have the uh regulatory part figured out. How can they essentially work with AI view group to you know help them with the entire program and then think of scaling that program? Yes, of course. Uh that's something that we have in uh in in place because

**[19:49]** you can understand that if we pilot we see and if we see sometimes we say uh sensible information. So a security company wants to manage the data by by themsel and it's right. I I completely agree on that. That's the reason why the Luc help us the customer because we have in in our in our offer uh the ability to let the customer pilot >> right >> and we we lacked only for the um vendor of the platform because it's mandatory for us for to be compliant with the Luc and we will act as governance. So we will not see the data coming from the drone. We will make some audit about the operational uh activities the compliancy and so on. So we will act as some authority because it's a chain uh

**[20:54]** the pilot fly uh we check the the pilot and the organization compliance and then the authority check us on the on the action of the pilot. So >> it's it's a it's a related chain. So we we can help the the security company in in that way and the process is simple because a part of the prerequisite that the pilot needs to have uh like a vivos certificate then for having them in our luc we need to to make an initial training made by a made by a group. So it's quite simple. We do not um ask for uh for an external action. >> Super nice. Uh that that sounds like a very simple way to get started. Um I think moving on to the questions from the audience. The one the first one that we have is what's the most significant thing that the drone has caught on the rail network that

**[21:58]** would have been missed or found much later without this program in place? >> Uh, sorry. Can you repeat? >> Yeah, sure. I'll repeat the question. So what's the most significant thing that the drone has caught on the rail network the project that you are currently working on >> that would have been missed or found much later in case this program or B loss operations were not to take place. But um I I think that the the BB loss oper Okay. The [gasps] [snorts] we from starting from the the project started with with the idea that the drone were simple to put in place and started and started the operation. uh starting from uh asking for for authorization from the from from the authority uh it's a long it's a long time uh to wait uh in Italy at least uh we we are in

**[23:05]** around eight months and and and more. So uh with the with our you see we started out our activity in 10 days with the installation and uh the start of the the start of the the operation. So that's something that the the customer um understood about the the >> Got it. Thanks so much. So we have another question. Uh the question asks that how did you manage to get through the strict policies in Italy? >> Sorry. >> Yeah. So the question is that how do you manage to get through the strict policies in Italy? >> Uh strict policy. >> Yeah. So in terms of regulations, I think that's what the question is.

**[24:08]** uh in Italy um in Italy it's um our our activity in our regulation in Italy is the European regulation uh plus some some action coming from the our national authority but we are based on the on the heaza heaza regulations. So uh we we got our our LUC after a long journey uh not strictly related to the uh to the Luc part but a long journey with the um relationship of trust with the with the national based on our track record and our and our presence on the market. So uh we we started the BOS experimentation five years ago with them and then uh now we have the project in place that are

**[25:08]** for what the mand the look is mandatory at the end. So is there is the right way to uh to put in place the project is with the with the at the end. >> Understood. Thank you so much. So I probably in best interest of time take up one last question. Uh the question goes that before the drones how were these inspections done? Were teams walking the track or using inspection trains how much of the network they were actually able to cover? uh before there was not before the drone. The project started directly with uh with idea of the drones. Uh of course the the the ability to put in place the drone in 10 days has been a um a big things uh for for for the for the customer. Well uh we the the drone is not the uh 100% solution because you perfectly know that drone sometimes cannot fly and

**[26:14]** so the control room and the guard on the base are are mandatory but uh at the end it's uh 90% uh security uh in in in the project in in the project itself Right. Perfect. Understood. So, thank you so much Nicola. I think I'll just like to summarize and you know u kind of just point out the very clear takeaways that we have received from the session. So, first that we have gathered from this is that drones in security are not just about adding another video stream. The real value really comes in when it's integrated into the security operation, the control room, the PSIM, all the alarm workflows, etc. And I think the second most important thing is that scale of the program depends on governance. So if every flight is treated as a

**[27:17]** one-off authorization, it is very hard to move to 24/7 operations. But when compliance rules, safety gates, audit trails, and operating procedures are built into the model, drones can become a repeatable capability across multiple sites. And I think that's one thing that Nicola is going to cover in the next session again wherein he's going to talk about the LU the light UAS operator uh authorization that AI view group has and how you know customers partners who want to get started with drone operations without getting into the big maze of regulations can actually work with AI view group and work with LU in order to start with the operations and get value from the program. So we look forward to having all of you join in the session in the next one minute where Nicola will be sharing more on this topic. Thank you so much.

**[28:19]** >> Thank you.