If the best defence is good preparation, then Estonia is a steel fortress. It boasts deep collaborations between academia, private enterprise, government, and the military. These long-term partnerships have consistently invested in research and development of defence industry innovations. Home to skilled experts in high-tech systems, real-time computing, and cybersecurity, Estonia doesn’t take a back seat in thinking strategically about defence — for itself nor its allies.
The past year of brutal war waged against Ukraine placed Estonia’s defence investments at centre stage. While Estonia supports Ukraine with its current capabilities, the private and public sectors continue to invest in the next generation of defence solutions.
TrackDeep, founded in 2021, is one of Estonia’s next DefenceTech startups. Led by a team with drone surveillance, IT, and military backgrounds, the company uses AI-powered tracking to monitor designated areas for security breaches. At scale, TrackDeep will be the air-traffic control company of choice for the rapidly expanding drone industry.
Aggregating the drone landscape with AI
While witnessing various siege efforts in Ukrainian cities, it becomes very clear why having a clear view of an area is critical for security. Additionally, drones have become a levelling force for Ukraine so far.
TrackDeep already provides AI-powered technology to combine data sources like radars, cameras, and sensors in a mapped area for the platform to quickly and accurately identify any anomalies. Reliable surveillance data can distinguish between friendly traffic with recognizable movement patterns and unwanted intrusions. Additionally, the TrackDeep platform allows its defence, government, and private sector clients to rank and react to possible threats accordingly — in real-time.
Andy Viikmaa, TrackDeep CEO, reflected ahead of Invest in Estonia’s Defence59 event on how they view drone usage in Ukraine so far.
“The main challenge for Ukraine is to avoid losing their own drones in friendly fire. So far, it is presumed that they have lost most of their drones because of a lack of information. TrackDeep can easily mark drones as friendly or foe to avoid this problem. We can share the info using every communication channel that is available on the field,” explains Viikmaa.
“The second challenge is to gather all info from the different Counter Drone Systems from different regions and show it as a “live stream” in a command centre,” notes Viikmaa. “We show different Counter drone systems as one. Our platform is scalable and designed for covering big areas with a lot of different sensor networks.”
As the project leader for the first stationary counter-drone solution in Estonia, Viikmaa knew the full-scale potential of creating a system that provides accurate information on drone activity in real-time — much like an airport traffic control tower guaranteeing safety thanks to data from a variety of sources.
Safeguarding cities
While TrackDeep already provides its technology across several use cases, its scale target is the city of tomorrow.
There’s a projected boom of drone flights — we’re talking 100,000 daily flights by 2030 in Europe alone. It’s a matter of (very little) time before the role of air traffic controller goes beyond the airport. Learning from the mistakes made with the mass adoption of cars, TrackDeep sets sights on creating structures for safety and convenience for the next big possible “traffic jam” — the traffic jam of drones.
TrackDeep is on a mission to expand the scale of its current platform’s capabilities by creating City Domes. These “domes” combine a sensor network mapping an entire city, traffic monitoring software (to track drones, flight permissions, and illegal drone traffic) and traffic management software (to create and manage drone flight corridors to ensure safety and create traffic priority).
See TrackDeep’s pitch at Defence59:
Invest in the defence sector
TrackDeep is looking for €1.2 million to fund a pilot City Dome and scale the software to accommodate the new scope. Once the solution is piloted, TrackDeep expects to use it as a blueprint for cities around the world. The team of seven includes skilled individuals with backgrounds in drone operations, software system development, and military expertise.
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