When most people think of police or security drones, they picture an outdoor quadcopter flying high above a parking lot or monitoring a outdoor event. So, what if a drone lived inside a building where it docked silently on a hallway ceiling for months at a time, waiting to launch automatically the moment an emergency alarm sounds?
In an exclusive interview with The Drone Girl, Aviv Shapira, CEO and cofounder of robotics company XTEND, revealed that his company is actively testing indoor, autonomous security drones in commercial spaces, including an active pilot program inside an unnammed school in Florida.
XTEND is backed by investors including Eric Trump and Protego Ventures.
From passive cameras to active robotic intervention
For decades, building security has relied on systems like CCTV cameras, which record events as they happen but don’t do anything in the moment. Sirens sound an alarm, but not much more. Passive systems such as these cannot actively stop a crime in progress before first responders arrive on scene.
XTEND is aiming to change that dynamic with autonomous indoor robotics powered by its XOS software platform.
“No security system active today is active unless it involves humans,” Shapira said. “You have cameras and sirens, but none actually stop crime. An active security drone in front of an intruder changes the equation.”
Here is how XTEND’s indoor system works:
- Autonomous launch: The micro-drone sits in a ceiling dock theoretically for months without requiring human maintenance.
- Instant navigation: When triggered by an intruder sensor or fire alarm, the drone automatically launches and navigates complex indoor corridors without relying on GPS.
- Human-in-the-loop control: Once the drone reaches the threat, it streams live video back to a remote monitoring center (that monitoring center would not just be for the drone at the single school, but potentially monitoring drones all over the country. There, a human operator would be able to communicate directly with the human threat via a built-in two-way speaker feed.
- Non-lethal deterrents: The drone itself would not carry any weapons (in fact, under FAA law it is illegal to operate a drone with a dangerous weapon attached). However, XTEND is currently testing non-lethal payloads for commercial indoor applications, including localized pepper spray, high-intensity flash lights, and acoustic deterrents to disorient bad actors. For those use cases, several states (including Florida) have specific statutes regulating armed drones. North Dakota, for instance, specifically permits law enforcement to deploy non-lethal weapons (strobe lights, tear gas) on drones, whereas other states ban any weaponized payloads entirely.
While XTEND has deployed more than 25,000 systems across military and search-and-rescue domains worldwide, bringing autonomous robotics into public educational spaces would represents a pretty significant extension of its current scope. And Shapira acknowledged that scaling indoor security drones in schools requires significant community conversation and parental education.
“Imagine parents accepting that there is a drone with non-lethal capabilities living on the ceiling inside a school,” Shapira said. “It’s about market education. But we really believe the private security and public safety market is going to be huge as people look for active ways to keep facilities safe.”
And while the technology exists, that social friction will likely be huge. School boards and parents often voice severe privacy concerns regarding indoor cameras, alongside fears of accidental payload deployment (e.g., a false alarm spraying pepper spray in a hallway full of students).
For what it’s worth, XTEND is far from the only company eyeing this space. The broader public safety and campus security drone market is projected to exceed $3 billion according to a report from Coherent Market Insights, driven by the surge in indoor-capable autonomous systems. Companies like Campus Guardian Angel and Mithril have also piloted non-lethal drone response systems in US schools. Their platforms deploy in under 15 seconds to disorient active threats using strobe lights, acoustic alarms and pepper spray before ground officers arrive. Here’s a YouTube demo from Campus Guardian Angel on how their product works:
Shapira has also envisioned a world where the drones could work beyond schools but also perhaps in shopping malls or other indoor spaces where monitoring bad actors is a useful option.
What do you think? Are drones in schools a wise idea to improve safety? Tell me in the comments!