Years of Drone Security Operations: An Earnest Salute from Thailand

As an emerging technology, drones have rapidly evolved since their inception, and have become accessible to private companies since the 2010s, triggering a market with immense potential. Among their end uses, security and observation have taken increasingly significant share.

To better understand their use in this area, YANGDA team recently conducted a 5-day installation and feedback visit with a returned customer in Thailand — a defense unit that has been applying VTOL drone for area protection and patrol for years.

Image: http://www.aletheiasecurity.sg/Solutions-Security-Manpower

Why Opt Out of Traditional Manual Patrol?

The Thailand team purchased their first security drone from YANGDA in 2022 — exactly when traditional surveillance had gradually revealed its incompetency:

• Manpower limit:Since our early civilization, humans have relied on planned patrolling, regular inspection or occasional defense drills to deploy security strategy. Yet physical limitations—such as fatigue, distraction, or oversight—can reduce patrol effectiveness, leading to slower responses especially at night.
• Information limit: Fixed cameras are the most common tool in traditional security monitoring, performing well in controlled indoor environments where Internet and electricity are available. However, in open areas like mining sites or along coastlines, their limitations—blind spots, imprecise positioning, or attainable but complex multi-camera tracking—become apparent and annoying.
• Budget limit:To address the shortcomings mentioned above, additional investments in security personnel and upgraded filming or communication equipment are needed. Yet this will incur a rather high budget allocation due to future maintenance, staff recruitment and device integration.

Modern Security Operations: Data-Driven is the New Must

“One key fascination of drone security operations is its precise data transmission. We deployed our entire response strategy based on its data, and got a huge efficiency improvement”, said the Thai team leader.

Unlike traditional manual methods, drone security operations integrates monitoring, patrolling, tracking and communication into a powerful system, where data is continuously shared among drones, cameras and ground control stations. Together with the Thai team, we summarized the intelligence of drone surveillance into the following takeaways:

• Safer exploration:Since 2022, The Thai team has applied VTOL drones for long-range area observation via remote control. Thanks to their ability to take off and land vertically even in challenging terrain, these drones have significantly expanded the surveillance area and enabled the team to explore the known and unknown without exposing staff to potential risks.