Venice’s Marco Polo Airport Deploys Drone-Detection System

The manager of Venice’s Marco Polo Airport has partnered with British counter-drone company Operational Solutions Ltd. (OSL) to provide drone-detection services at the facility.

The partnership follows a search by the management company, SAVE Group, for a solution to unauthorized drone activity around the airport, which handles more than 11.3 million passengers per year. Venice-based SAVE also manages Treviso, Verona and Brescia airports in Italy, as well as Brussels South Charleroi Airport in Belgium.

Unauthorized drone incursions into airport airspace are an increasing problem for airports around the world. The security breaches are capable of causing operation suspensions, aircraft damage and compromising the safety of people on the ground. In July 2022, flights were halted for 30 minutes at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport after an unauthorized drone was sighted near a runway.

OSL’s drone-detection system is hardware-agnostic, meaning it can be paired with existing technology from across the counter-unmanned aircraft systems (CUAS) industry, thereby minimizing disruption and ensuring continued smooth operations at the airport, the company said.

The one deployed at Marco Polo was customized for the airport’s particular needs, which were assessed on-site by OSL teams. Following the system’s deployment, the airport’s airspace is remotely monitored by crews working in OSL’s operations center in the United Kingdom.

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OSL did not respond to a request for specifics about what systems were used at Marco Polo, but the company provides a variety of drone-detection solutions, all of which use artificial intelligence to identify and classify drones.

Among the company’s systems, INSIGHT is an AI image-analytics module that works with existing optical sensors to classify drone types, while FACE is a software platform that uses advanced algorithms to combine data feeds from a variety of third-party sensors into a single overview for security personnel.

SKYSIGHT is an optical drone-detection system based on a pair of automated cameras. First, a fixed, wide-field-of-view camera monitors the sky for incursions or threats. When movement is detected, an AI-enabled pan-tilt-zoom camera tracks the object in question, classifies the drone type, its payload and sends the information to response teams.

“OSL’s solutions will undoubtedly enhance our safety measures at Venice Airport, increasing our situational awareness of drone activities and ensuring quicker responses to incursions,” said Federico Cesarotti, Marco Polo’s deputy safety manager. “Safety remains our highest priority, and I truly believe that this proactive approach will enable Venice Airport to adapt to evolving challenges effectively.”

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