While Andalusia in southern Spain may be best known for bullfighting, gazpacho, Pablo Picasso, and a bevy of historic landmarks, parts of the region have embraced the benefits of being a driving force in Europe’s technology industry. On December 9, 1992, Parque Tecnológico de Andalucía (PTA), the Andalusia Technology Park, opened housing for 8 companies and 130 employees in Málaga. Shortly thereafter, the University of Málaga’s Research Results Transfer Office joined the PTA, propelling the center into the collaborative technology hub it is today. PTA has become one of the most important economic and technological centers in Spain with more than 600 companies and 16,000 employees.

In 2009, Aeorum, a Research and Development (R&D) firm opened in one of the PTA’s spaces. As stated on the company’s website, their goal is to “contribute to the making of reliable, fast and accurate decisions in complex situations through new preventive surveillance tools. The objective? Managing the security in a more efficient way.” Within the collaborative walls of PTA, members from Aeorum and the University of Málaga began to look at how the world is connected by the global internet and how that can be applied to securities. They developed a concept of global robotics that could be used by police and security agents to protect the European Union.

As Aeorum R&D specialists explained, “If the Internet was already a reality that globalized the information, why not globalize physical interaction with the world?” The way this concept of global robotics would work would involve two primary teams. The first being a team of humans like police officers. The other proponent would be a fleet of drones that physically interact with the surrounding world for their human counterpart. By 2013, a drone system developed by Aeorum and the University of Málaga caught the attention of the Spanish State Security Forces and the European Network of Law Enforcement Technology Services (ENLETS). Initially, the drone program, called SysRobotics, was to be used by inspectors to monitor the state’s critical infrastructure systems.

With support from Spain’s police force and ENLETS, Aeorum received R&D funding to develop out a drone program that could connect the European Union. Essentially, Aeeorum would provide a network of police and security drones based out of one location that could be used anywhere in Europe. This would create a global drone fleet management system called Surveiron. On September 17, 2017, Aeorum and ENLETS conducted a test of the Surveiron program with the first intra-European drone mission. An operator in Madrid launched two drones from the ground in Finland, more than 4,000km away. The drones were remotely piloted to search the woods of Lapland for a missing person. The Surveiron software for the mission was hosted out of Aeorum’s offices in Málaga while an ENLETS team in Brussels monitored the entire mission in real time.

With Aeorum’s drone programs, the European Union has an effective and efficient way to implement drone technology. While individual states still benefit from drone security systems, having a network provided by a system like Surveiron ensures complete coverage and accountability. People are kept safe, R&D funding is well managed, and enforcement agencies have the technology needed to carry out complex operations. “This model of cooperation,” explains Aeorum, “would ensure that law enforcement agencies across Europe have access to the most effective technology solutions.”