September 21, 2022
MIAMI – An Airborne Response UAS flight team conducts a condition assessment drone inspection of a customer’s critical infrastructure site. Photo courtesy of Airborne Response.
On September 20, the safety and security firm Safe Pro Group announced that it had acquired Airborne Response, a provider of aerial intelligence solutions using uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS). Under the agreement, the Miami-based Airborne Response will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Safe Pro Group.
Dan Edberg, Safe Pro Group’s Chairman and CEO, said that the acquisition of Airborne Response will expand his company’s “capabilities to provide commercial and government customers with mission critical solutions to support their requirements and effectively achieve their objectives.”
Commercial UAV News spoke with Erdberg about how the Airborne Response deal will impact Safe Pro Group’s commercial and government clients and what enterprise users need to know about adopting UAS technology.
Commercial UAV News: What can you tell us about any of the new opportunities that this development will open up for existing Safe Pro commercial and government customers?
Erdberg: We see a number of synergies across the business, bringing expanded capabilities in the commercial markets for applications such as in infrastructure monitoring and in security and law enforcement. In the military and humanitarian sectors, we see a great potential in using drones to dramatically improve the identification and removal of unexploded ordinance (UXO) and landmines through enhanced visualization and communications enabling more efficient explosive ordinance disposal (EOD).
Commercial UAV News: How will this impact the existing Airborne Response services and support?
Erdberg: This acquisition enhances Airborne’s services and support capabilities with additional resources and expertise and will allow us to broaden its reach into the into the federal government market.
Commercial UAV News: When it comes to using drones to provide customers with comprehensive data-driven insights that will support how they can make decisions, is the biggest challenge related to technology, established processes, regulation, or something else? Will this acquisition help in your efforts to sort through any or all of these challenges?
Erdberg: We believe one critical challenge right now is the continued use of Chinese-manufactured drones in critical infrastructure monitoring by US-based drone operators and what that means for current and future investments into their UAS platforms. Airborne Response has already made a commitment here to upgrade our fleet with Blue UAS-approved systems. Beyond the financial commitment to new hardware, this effort involves countless hours and investment into the re-integration of all the various software solutions and systems that previously only supported Chinese or internationally produced drones.
Commercial UAV News: What’s one thing you want readers to know about how this development will impact how enterprise users should consider the use and adoption of drone technology going forward?
Erdberg: As we say, Safe Pro is committed to protecting those who protect us all and through this acquisition we look forward to expanding our capabilities and customer base within the enterprise and government sectors. We remain committed to growing our operations in our home state of Florida and to leveraging our portfolio of products including our Blue UAS offerings to deliver mission critical products and services to our customers both domestically and internationally.
