Outstanding Security Partnership 2020: Volkswagen & IAV Drone Innovation Partnership

Acceptance Speech

We as Volkswagen Group Security, would like to thank the OSPA jury for paving the way for us to make it to the final with three top topics of Group and Plant Security. This alone means a great success for us. This is why we are all the more proud to have actually won the most important award in the security industry in Germany for the second time in the “Outstanding Security Partnership” category.

We would like to thank everyone who supported and promoted our project from start to finish.

Our particular gratitude goes to all employees of the air traffic and control authority Lower Saxony, who continuously steered the autonomous flight topic and positively impacted and at the same time supported us through the project. The same applies for the two companies Carmeq and Volkswagen Infotainment, who literally allowed us to climb their roof in order to have our drone system tested. It comes without saying that we naturally thank all other employees and works councils involved for their understanding and support in developing and implementing new and state of the art security technology. Last but not least, a special thanks goes out to our partner, Ingenieur-Partner IAV and Volkswagen AG who provided us with a solid platform for a workable project.

We have come a long way but it was well worth the trouble and challenges.

We mastered many technical challenges through intensive cooperation, including one or the other setback. In the end, we managed to interlink the concept of autonomously flying drones with existing alarm systems. To date, we have completed 140 test flights.

In terms of digitization and automation, the system can be considered as a milestone in the field of alarm intervention, enabling us to react faster and more effectively in the case of alarm situations.

The next stage will be that of series-production readiness followed by commercial marketing of the system.

Having now been awarded with the OSPA will surely support our endeavors as not only our partnership has been recognized but also the project itself. 

In this regard, we would like to encourage other companies to get involved and jointly build a technology leadership in Germany on this topic.