What drones can do for security: Skydio and Titan protection
In this conversation with Titan Security, live from ISC West, Skydio’s Dylan Brown breaks down what’s driving change in site security.
Alarm volume is rising. Most alerts are false. Teams are covering more ground with fewer people, and response times suffer as a result.
Autonomous drones shift how security gets done. They launch in seconds, verify alarms with live video, and give operators immediate visibility. Instead of chasing down every alert, teams can focus on what’s real.
These systems plug into the tools security teams already use, streaming directly into existing platforms and working alongside cameras, sensors, and access control. Coverage expands. Response speeds up. Operations become more consistent without adding headcount.
In the discussion, Dylan shares how teams are starting to move beyond manual patrols and static coverage, and what it looks like to operate with systems that can scale and respond in real time.
- Welcome to a special edition of the Titan Protection Show.
- We are here in the SiriusXM Studio in the Wynn Hotel in Las
- Vegas, and it is ISC West. We've got a great lineup here.
- We are talking about physical security and technology, how those
- things blend together, and excited to have Dylan Brown here from
- Skydio. Dylan, you lead site security for Skydio.
- Appreciate you coming on. Uh,
- thank you.
- Yeah, appreciate being here.
- Yeah, absolutely. So folks that are-- may not be familiar with
- Skydio, give us kind of the elevator pitch.
- What got you started?
- Where have y'all been? And, and obviously we're here talking about
- security, so I
- know that's kind of the next beachhead or front that we're talking about,
- but give
- us a little background on, uh, on Skydio.
- Yeah, definitely. So Skydio started as a consumer
- drone company just over 10 years ago, and really the claim to
- fame at the starting point was this really
- groundbreaking autonomy stack. So that allowed us to do things
- like chase mountain bikers down hills, avoid obstacles,
- and really kind of create new dynamic, uh, camera angles
- for action sports. And over time, we
- started to realize, and really the, the market started to realize, that
- that level
- of autonomy was something that was highly applicable in the enterprise
- space. So over the course of th-the past 10
- years, we've made
- that big pivot into the enterprise space, primarily focused on, on three kind
- of core use cases. The three core use cases
- historically were inspection and mapping for large utilities,
- critical infrastructure, construction, departments of transportation,
- um, tactical ISR in a, in a, in a military setting, so
- intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and more recently,
- we're seeing a very
- large surge around drone as first responder for public
- safety. Um, and that's really where we're seeing a,
- a tremendous amount of
- traction today.
- Sure. No, that's awesome. I think a lot of folks out there may
- remember you from
- the consumer space and certainly from DFR.
- We are here at ISC West Physical Security.
- This has been a show I've come to for years, and it's really interesting to see
- more of the physical security, less integrators, not less,
- but in addition,
- and kind of seeing those things bled together.
- Obviously, you're seeing security as kind of a,
- a beachhead to, you know, that
- may-maybe in addition to some of the verticals you've talked about.
- What's led you to security, or how'd you end up at ISC West?
- Yeah. A, a really interesting question, and kind of something that we saw
- unfold in the market, is the core
- product fundamentals that we created to be able to support the
- preceding use
- cases I mentioned are all kind of each independently
- applicable to different jobs to be done in a, in a
- security setting. So our inspection workflows for
- autonomous, uh, critical infrastructure inspection plays
- really
- nicely into kind of this autonomous drone patrol type use case.
- And then the responding to 911 calls, product fundamentals in
- a, in a, in drone as first responder use case plays
- really nicely for
- incident response and security, and the market started to really
- realize that. So we actually had a tremendous amount of
- customer
- pull into that space, and as we started to see that start to
- mount, we, we decided that we were gonna go all in.
- Um, and so more recently, we've stood up entire product development
- efforts
- around really creating specialized workflows for
- security itself.
- And is that what you're learning from security directors, or is there anything
- that has stood out as something that you're learning in this space or that
- surprised you at all?
- Yeah. I, I think that the, the market kind of already knows what
- problems
- it has and has been really, really creative about different
- approaches to try and solve it. But I think we're kind of at this
- precipice
- where technology is finally ready to
- address problems that previously you could only really
- address with
- adding kind of more humans into the mix.
- Mm-hmm.
- Which at some point just becomes like a completely unscalable answer
- to your problems.
- Right.
- So with the advances in AI and the advances that we've made from
- a, a drone perspective, both from a reliability,
- autonomy, safety, uh, and repeatability of flight with our,
- our recent developments with docking stations over the last two years,
- it puts us
- in a position right now where, where the technology can actually meet the
- market
- where it's at and start to really solve some of the problems that we're seeing in
- the space.
- Sure. Yeah. The box, the docking station, that has
- been a big piece for us as we followed this.
- We really need to be on visual line of sight, and we needed-
- Mm-hmm
- ... a docking station.
- Mm-hmm.
- Those two things are starting to come together, which is exciting, and kinda to
- your point, we're, we're seeing these now become a reality
- and kinda seeing that
- come through. Talk to us a little bit about,
- one of the things we get a lot from
- customers is the integration side of, okay, how do we, how does, how do
- we get access to this video? How do we use it?
- You know, what are the use cases, and how does it play with our current
- ecosystem of products?
- Yeah, it's a great question. So a lot of the overlap
- between the public safety ecosystem from a technology provider
- perspective, uh, is pretty strong in the security ecosystem
- as
- well. Um, so we have, uh, existing integrations with video
- management s-solutions like Axon, Fusus, Genetec,
- and many others. Um, and that kind of get, gets us in the door from just
- being part of kind of that hub and spoke security operations system.
- Right.
- Um, and so we have the ability to easily
- integrate from providing that real-time
- situational awareness from a drone perspective into the existing kind of
- video management, real-time situational awareness type
- products, and we're gonna
- continue to expand in that, in that space.
- Um, but yeah, so w-we, we have a pretty dynamic
- and open ecosystem that allows
- us to plug and play rather seamlessly.
- Interesting. I, and I'm seeing that a lot when we're talking about this
- blending of
- security and technology.
- It's how do we layer these things together and make them useful 'cause we've got
- all these different systems, and I think that integration piece
- is certainly top of
- mind for a lot of, of users.
- Um, as you're talking more with security
- professionals
- Where are you seeing demand come from?
- Where are you seeing-- what verticals are you seeing it really work?
- Kinda where are you-- what should
- somebody in the security field keep their ear to the ground for
- this works very well in this scenario?
- Yeah, that's a really good question.
- And I think if you zoom out a little bit, if you think about it in terms
- of what are the prevailing problem sets that we're seeing that are really hard to
- tackle with the, like, historic technologies
- and, uh, kind of processes that have in, been in place in the security
- ecosystem. And I think ev- anyone who's been in the game for, for,
- for a while knows that there's a really large false alarm
- problem.
- Mm-hmm.
- Um, and so you're seeing a lot of different
- approaches to trying to achieve
- visual verification that doesn't require a human being to
- go out and confirm whatever signal got, got tripped.
- So whether that's a, you know, a motion detection, you know,
- a door alarm,
- what-whatever kind of that alarm system is, uh, one of the, the
- best approaches is to, to get visual verification.
- And if you don't wanna put cameras at every location of where you
- have a, a potential sensor or trigger or blind spot, a drone is a
- really good answer for, for the incident response workflow around,
- hey, if you have a really high alarm, uh, a-alarm rate,
- and that you, you couple that with a high false alarm rate,
- how do you cut through
- some of that, um, uh, like alarm fatigue that we
- see kind of really rising to the surface today, especially in this dynamic
- threat environment-
- Right
- ... that we're seeing with kind of all
- different types of, of, of threats, whether
- that's, you know, from, from unauthorized drones or, you know,
- just simply, like, ground-based threats.
- Uh, I think we're just seeing kind of a, a, a relatively unstable-
- Right
- ... climate right now-
- Yes
- ... where people are feeling kind of on edge
- and-
- Yeah
- ... and it, it raises the stakes a little bit,
- I think.
- Right.
- I totally agree. We're seeing the same thing where,
- you know, traditionally, you
- had your integrator, you had your physical security provider,
- and it was kind of
- an either/or, and now we're seeing those things blend
- together.
- False alarms driving that, you know, we want the equipment-
- Mm-hmm
- ... to detect, but there's still a last mile piece of how
- do we-
- Mm-hmm
- ... respond to that, and how do we put all those together in a,
- in a useful, you
- know, layering way? Um, one of the things that we're seeing,
- too,
- as we're starting to get, and, you know, the FAA loves that crawl, walk, run
- scenario, we're starting to see more one-to-many
- and to where
- now-
- Yeah
- ... a pilot can fly multiple drones.
- While we've found that
- one of the biggest challenges we've had is when we had one pilot with one drone,
- they were watching the scene looking for something.
- Now we're needing the software to do that piece for us-
- Mm-hmm
- ... 'cause we've got multiple drones.
- Tell us a little bit about the software stack, the AI piece, the detection part
- of that, and how that works, uh, with a Skydio drone.
- Yeah, that's a really good question.
- So one of the things that y- we have to kind of also be aware of,
- to your point,
- is traditionally, from a FAA beyond visual line of sight
- perspective, the, uh, historic kind of path there is
- a one-to-one pilot-to-drone relationship, and
- Skydio's really been leading the charge in this one-to-many world, and, you know,
- we're, we're pushing and leaning forward to create a world
- where we're zero to
- many, um, and the, the FAA Part 107 compliance is
- automated. Uh, we're, we're, we're kind of pushing the bounds of the
- drone autonomy portion that allows you to not require having a
- pilot-
- Right
- ... in the seat, or at, at a minimum, allow a single pilot to operate many
- drones.
- Right.
- So we've actually had multiple, um, customers get FAA,
- uh, one-to-many waivers. Uh, I think we dropped
- 13 in the last month.
- Oh, wow.
- Um, so we're really seeing a surge there.
- And then the next problem becomes, okay, if you're flying
- four drones simultaneously, there's in-flight autonomy to make it
- safe, right? So, like, we've got world-class safety features
- around
- geofencing, visual obstacle avoidance, you know, the list goes on
- and on, uh, which allows you to confidently fly in
- that manner that doesn't
- require you to be, like, an expert, like, on all the time, every
- minute to make sure your drone flights are safe and doing what you need them to
- do.
- Right.
- So we tackle that portion kind of upstream already. We're, we're rock solid there.
- The next piece is the workflows, like what jobs are you actually doing with
- drones?
- Right.
- And that's where the kind of the AI piece comes in.
- So today, we have a feature called Shadow, um, which is, uh,
- person and vehicle detection, tracking, and following.
- Okay.
- So that's more of a, a, a, a
- reactive type, uh, detection. So we detect them,
- and it requires a, a pilot or a user to click on one of those objects
- to get it to track and follow. And one of the things
- that we're working on first
- party is automating that.
- Sure.
- So, you know, you, you establish detection zones.
- The, the drone flies around on an autonomous
- patrol.
- You have a pilot in command today monitoring, whether that's
- one-to-many or, or one-to-one. Um, and that allows us
- to, to automate some of the workflows that they would be doing otherwise.
- And then we're working with a, a host of third-party AI partners to kind
- of expand
- that, uh, detection portfolio immediately
- while we build out some of
- those things first party in-house as well, so.
- Interesting.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. It'll, you know, the crawl, walk, run, seeing it go from one-to-one,
- one-to-many, and eventually none to many, it's interesting to see that start to
- happen, and it'll be interesting to see how long
- that takes and how that
- goes. And, and we know, you know, with Part 108 coming out,
- that's gonna change
- some things. I'm really hoping the FAA recognizes the
- difference between contained operations and uncontained.
- That's a great point.
- And I think that's gonna be really impactful,
- especially for the security industry,
- because our use case is just very different.
- The risk profile's different.
- I hope that gets recognized that we don't take steps backwards in
- that beyond-
- Mm-hmm
- ... visual line of sight process. Um, but very interesting.
- I think that's a, a really important point to kind of double
- tap on.
- Mm-hmm.
- And that's that these site security operations are truly in these
- kind of fixed, contained environments, known airspace,
- and in that environment allows us, I think, to push the bounds, and,
- and I think
- the FAA will, will respect that in kind, uh, allow us to push the bounds of the
- autonomy and, and of the automation, uh, to, to, to
- minimize the burden and really the cost of, of a-adding more,
- more
- headcount to achieve equivalent operations.
- Operations, yeah.
- And so I think, uh, I'm very, very bullish on our ability to do
- that quickly.
- Awesome. Well, no, exciting. Well, y'all are at, uh, uh-
- Booth 8135-
- That's right
- ... at ISC West, so stop by and check them out.
- You've got drones in the booth, obviously-
- That's right
- ... the docking station, and, and then beyond that,
- you're flying these remotely
- from the booth several hundred miles away to kind of show how this can
- work from a security operations center to a site down-
- Yeah
- ... uh, away. So definitely, uh, check out the Skydio booth.
- Um, we will put some notes, uh, down with links to how to get in touch
- with
- y'all and some more information on your products and services.
- Really appreciate you coming on. Uh, one last thing to leave
- everybody with: if there's a security director,
- an operations manager,
- somebody's out there walking the show, looking at drones, what's the one
- thing you want them to take away as they talk about drones and security or visit
- your booth?
- Yeah, it's a great question. The one takeaway is
- that you don't have to wait, that
- the future is here, and it's a kind of a cheesy line,
- but it's real.
- Yeah.
- Um, we're flying every day to 911 calls in,
- in, in most major
- cities. Uh, and, and I think that if the takeaway is that it's
- not some future R&D type project, it's a real solution that solves
- your problems right now, uh, you really should y- stop by the
- booth, uh, go to our website, and you can even, uh,
- go to our website and request a, a trial of our software with
- our Paraverse, which is a, a full digital twin of our entire stack.
- And that'll allow you to, to put digital docks and drones on
- your sites and actually fly around and start testing and, and trying to
- create some of those autonomous patrol missions and, and get a feel for what it
- might look like for you, and I think that that's just a, another, another layer
- of just, like, accelerating getting started.
- Yeah.
- It doesn't have to be some big question mark.
- It's a great sandbox. We use it as well for training pilots,
- so great point for
- sure.
- Yeah. Awesome.
- Really appreciate you coming on. Uh, folks out there,
- if you're walking the show
- floor or, um, not able to make ISC West, we'll certainly link
- some stuff to Skydio, but Dylan, I appreciate you coming on.
- Yeah.
- Have a great show.
- Appreciate you having me. You as well. Thanks.
Watch Time
14 Mins 21 Secs