Installing surveillance equipment at a location usually means setting up several stationery cameras that at best can rotate to track suspicious activity. But they are limited, and in a lot of cases require someone to be controlling their movement in order to detect and track effectively.
Japanese company Secom has developed what it believes is a much better solution: an autonomous surveillance drone that can travel to the location of an intruder, then track and monitor them, capturing images in the process.
When there is no active threat the drone will sit in a base station, which also acts as a battery charger as these flying machines usually have a battery life of around 15-20 minutes. When the accompanying security system detects an intruder, be it a vehicle or person, the drone is informed of the location and flies there.
The equipment being carried includes an LED light source, camera, and computer system. This allows the drone to not only capture images of the intruder, but in the case of the car it can figure out the vehicle’s orientation and adjust its flight path to ensure an image of the license plate is captured.
As it’s a mobile surveillance unit flying high in the air, it’s very difficult for an intruder to disable it (the drone is also programmed to fly at a safe distance away from the threat) or move to a location where the drone can’t follow. Using a drone also means you actually need far less equipment to keep an eye on a large facility, so the Secom drone could actually end up saving money on a complete security solution.
There’s no word on price or availability yet, but I suspect we may see this drone put in an appearance at CES next month, or at the very least the next Japanese security or technology trade show.
More at Tech-On!
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