UAVs: From Niche to Ubiquity

Christian emphasized that UAVs have evolved from experimental tools into a pervasive operational reality. Industries, cities, and infrastructure operators increasingly rely on drones for inspection, logistics, monitoring, and data acquisition. This growth unlocks tremendous economic value but also accelerates exposure to new risks.

Growing Threats to Critical Infrastructure

In his talk, Christian highlighted that drones now pose real and immediate risks to operators of critical infrastructure, industrial facilities, and public institutions. Incidents involving:
- espionage,
- signal interference
- sabotage
- autonomous flight patterns that evade traditional defenses,
are rising in frequency, sophistication, and impact. These are no longer hypothetical scenarios — they are happening today, often without warning or detection.

Innovation vs. Vulnerability

Christian described the current landscape as a structural tension:
the economic promise of UAVs in logistics, urban mobility, and infrastructure management is accelerating, while security vulnerabilities in the lower airspace expand just as rapidly.

A Call to Redefine Airspace Protection

His central message was clear:
To safely unlock the next era of aerial innovation, we must redefine how the lower airspace is monitored, managed, and secured. Airspace Awareness is essential!

Traditional security models are no longer sufficient. The future requires a digitally integrated, sensor-rich, and intelligence-driven understanding of the near-ground airspace.