AirSight provides software to see, track, identify drones. By Dronelife Features Editor Jim Magill Earlier this year, federal prosecutors in Georgia uncovered an alleged wide-ranging, years-long plot to use drones to smuggle contraband into the state's prisons In June officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Georgia unsealed an indictment charging 12 people in a scheme to fly six drones to make contraband drops at least 38 times, into 10 federal prisons, between September 2023 and May 2026. The scheme points to the growing need for counter-UAS systems at correctional facilities and other sensitive sites to not only have the capability to detect and identify rogue drones in restricted airspaces, but also have the ability to record the activities of UAVs that become repeat offender over time. AirSight adds repeat-offender tracking to AirGuard drone detection platform. On November 4, Dallas-based AirSight announced the release of an add-on to its AirGuard drone detection software platform, that allows users to identify repeat offenders and risky flight patterns at a glance and share their findings with security personnel within minutes, all inside the AirGuard platform. The release of the new software tool is just the latest counter-UAS innovation released by the company, which began its life as a physical security company, installing fences, cameras and metal detectors to secure at-risk facilities, AirSight's founder and CEO Robert Tabbara said in an interview. From security integrator to drone detection software provider. "Our journey in security started out in around 2012. We were a security integrator; basically, the company that you call on if you're deploying large security cameras, access control, those types of solutions," Tabbara said. Around 2019, some Fortune 500 customers began asking the company if it also offered drone-detection services. "I said, 'We have no idea what that is, but we'll figure it out.' And we started looking around and we noticed that there was a disconnect in the market," he said. Tabbara said they found that a number of companies were offering counter-UAS hardware products, but none were coming up with a full turnkey solution to the growing problem of drone encroachments. In 2023 Tabbara and his team launched AirSight as its own entity, offering its AirGuard software as an open platform for drone detection. "We don't manufacture any hardware, but we work with 30-plus vendors that manufacture awesome radars and radio-frequency sensors and remote IDs. We just basically integrate the data, fuse it, make sense of it," he said. The company collects and analyzes its customers' counter-UAS data and forms insights, such as being able to identify when a suspicious-acting drone might become a real problem. Vendor-Neutral partnerships with Skydio and Flock Safety. Recently, AirSight announced a partnership with drone systems producer Skydio in which the AirGuard system detects UAV threats in real time and instantly shares that data with Skydio. This allows operators to rapidly deploy an autonomous monitoring drone that reaches the location fast and streams live intelligence directly to security officers. The company has similar partnership agreements with surveillance equipment producer Flock Safety and other surveillance and security firms. "We stay vendor-neutral. We work with everybody. Everybody's our friend, and we just provide solutions to our clients," Tabbara said. "The users are able to create rules; if it's a zone breach or if it's a zone violation, or a drone that's flying carelessly or above the 400 feet, whatever rules that they create." Countering increasing threats from rogue drones. Tabbara said while AirSight's initial focus was to provide counter-UAS services to facilities in the corrections field, its customer base has since expanded to include a broad cross-section of industries and institutions, including infrastructure projects, utilities, law enforcement facilities, Major League Baseball and NFL stadiums, and universities. "Just anybody that cares about securing their airspace usually is interested in talking to us and possibly deploying us." The company was also part of the counter-UAS umbrella that was thrown up around stadiums and other facilities affiliated with the FIFA World Cup soccer matches held in the U.S. earlier this year, working with hardware vendors that provided "at least six different drone-detection sensors" used to protect the tournament. Tabbara added that he also expects AirSight to be heavily involved in counter-UAS operations being planned in advance of the Olympic Games to be held in Las Angeles in 2028. Employee-Owned and NDAA-Compliant. As a 100% employee-owned company, AirSight has not had to raise outside funds from the financing industry. Based in the U.S., the company avoids any investment in any products that might jeopardize its status as an NDAA-compliant provider. "We work with several European companies. Early on, we worked with two Israeli companies. We worked with a company out of South Korea at some point, and we still use some of their equipment," he said. "We're not doing anything in China or any of the other places where we're not supposed to." Industry consolidation on the horizon. Tabbara said that since first becoming involved in the counter-UAS space, he has seen the commercial drone industry grow and evolve rapidly and he expects that the business is likely to see a wave of consolidation in the near future. "Right now, the industry is still fragmented," he said. "Between 2015 and 2020, there were just a whole bunch of companies coming in. Some of them made it, some of them ran out of funds and then went down." Following that initial wave of entrants into the market, a number of start-up drone companies were bought up or went out of business, to where there were fewer players in the field. "But now we're seeing a surge of newcomers," he said. "Eventually, like I mentioned, those companies, either they'll make it, merge with someone else or they'll probably go off the cliff again." Yet, regardless of the industry's business trends, the growth in the number of drones in the sky and the corresponding potential threat to infrastructure is only bound to increase exponentially. "Back in the day, we would put fences up, we would put metal detectors, we would put cameras, we would block doors with access control and run analytics to allow us who's coming to my property, to my door, to my company," Tabbara said. "Drones were not very present. They were more of a hobby back then. But obviously, with the technology, it has become easier to fly and people with bad intentions that want to cross that fence can use a drone to do that, whether to drop contraband, to spy or to launch a cyber-attack," he said. Tabbara said the counter-UAS operations that form the backbone of AirSight's business are really nothing more of than a continuation of the ground-level security layer the business offered in its earlier incarnation. "Now we have become another system to just do coverage over that third dimension."

The police officer is still on the way, and the drone is already watching. This is the future of interventions. A police drone takes off in 20 seconds and checks the scene of an incident before the patrol car arrives. Axon and Skydio are developing a new model of police work. 08.11.2026 16:00 In Redmond, Washington, police received a report about three teenagers in balaclavas who were said to be waving rifle-like weapons. The situation looked serious. Before officers reached the scene, a drone was sent there, and its camera allowed them to look at the suspects before the intervention began. The operators determined that the boys were holding airsoft replicas. The officers received this information while still en route, so they could prepare their actions appropriately. This is an example of one of the most important advantages of the Drone as First Responder system, or DFR for short. Police do not have to wait for a patrol to arrive to find out what is actually happening at the specified address. In Redmond, drones arrive at the scene in an average of 1 minute and 33 seconds. On more than 80 percent of flights, they are faster than officers. An even better result was recorded in Brookhaven, Georgia, where the average response time was 53 seconds. The technology is also being developed in Europe. In November last year we described a similar program launched by London police. The British also want to send drones to urgent calls before officers arrive at the scene. Axon is putting $1.2 billion into a flying police force. On November 5, the American company Axon announced an expansion of its cooperation with Skydio. The company, known primarily for Taser stun guns, body cameras and systems for managing police recordings, intends to invest about $1.2 billion in the drone manufacturer. The transaction includes cash and Axon shares. After it is finalized, the company's stake in Skydio is to rise from about 15 to 37 percent. Axon will also gain exclusive rights to distribute Skydio equipment for public safety services in the United States and Canada. The stakes are not small. Skydio supplies solutions to more than 1,500 public safety customers. According to estimates by both companies, more than 28 million Americans currently live within 2 miles, or about 3.2 km, of a drone docking station serving the DFR program. Axon wants to use this infrastructure together with its cameras, dispatch software and incident analysis systems. The company is, after all, investing increasingly heavily in automating police work. In January we described its Draft One tool, which creates reports from body camera recordings. At the time, tests revealed a serious problem with the artificial intelligence's interpretation of materials. Takeoff in 20 seconds. No pilot needed on the police station roof. The Skydio system is based on X10 drones placed in automated docking stations, most often on building roofs. The machines remain there charged and ready to fly. When a dispatcher selects the relevant call, the station opens and the drone can be airborne in about 20 seconds. The operator does not have to stand on the roof with a controller. The flight can be supervised from a command center, and software helps plot the route and avoid obstacles. Camera footage is sent live to the people conducting the intervention. The drone can also respond to a call from an officer already in the field. Conducting such operations requires appropriate aviation permissions, including approval for flights beyond the operator's line of sight if a given scenario requires it. This is therefore not freely releasing machines over a city without supervision. Axon reports that in units using Skydio solutions, response time to priority calls has been shortened by as much as 65 percent. However, a camera arriving faster does not necessarily mean that help requiring a human presence will arrive just as quickly. Every tenth call without sending a patrol. In Brookhaven, drones cover an area encompassing about 96 percent of the city. According to data presented by Axon, thanks to combining drones with dispatch systems, about 10 percent of calls were able to be resolved without sending an officer. In some situations, the camera makes it possible to determine that there is no longer a threat at the specified address or that the incident does not require patrol intervention. Officers can handle other tasks instead of driving across the city only to confirm that no further action is needed. Of course, not every call can be resolved from the air. A drone will not provide first aid, stop a perpetrator or physically secure a crime scene. It can, however, show officers the exact location of a person being sought or indicate whether armed assailants are nearby. The novelty in Skydio's solutions therefore does not lie in the use of aerial cameras itself. It is about constant readiness for takeoff and integrating drones into the everyday handling of emergency calls. Police cameras are proliferating. But who will watch the police? The growing popularity of DFR naturally also raises concerns among privacy organizations. The American Civil Liberties Union warns that systems developed for urgent calls may over time be used for routine surveillance of streets, demonstrations and other gatherings. In July of this year, security researchers discovered that transmissions from 5 Skydio police drones in San Francisco were available via a public internet address. The recordings included, among other things, stops, streets and people unrelated to the proceedings. The error was removed after it was reported, but it showed how sensitive data collected from the air can be. Skydio itself offers a tool that makes it possible to publish a flight log, along with information about the time, route and reason for using the drone. However, the scope of data disclosed depends on the specific unit. The technical ability to monitor is not the same as an obligation to transparently inform residents.