Skydio Drones, Axon Evidence: New Integration Streamlines Public Safety Operations

Skydio and Axon Launch New Integration of Skydio Drones with Axon Evidence

Today, industry leader Skydio, alongside global public safety leader Axon, announced that public safety agencies operating Skydio drones and employing Axon’s digital evidence management platform, Axon Evidence, will now be able to automatically upload photos and video captured on their drones to Axon Evidence as part of an early access program.

“Drones hold the promise of massive positive impact for public safety, but physically transferring and manually cataloguing photos and video footage from drones into a digital evidence management system is time consuming and error prone,” said Adam Bry, CEO of Skydio. “As part of Skydio’s strategic partnership with Axon, we’re excited to unveil this critical next step in helping public safety agencies quickly and easily organize their data via this new integration with Axon Evidence.”

Skydio and Axon announced a strategic partnership earlier this year, which included a joint roadmap of integrations between the two companies’ products. The first of these integrations, will be available today to select agencies through an early access program, which public safety agencies that currently fly Skydio drones and deploy Axon Evidence for evidence management can apply to participate in. This integration is expected to be made widely available in the next few months.

“With this latest integration, Skydio drone-captured imagery will be easily manageable and shareable for agencies, living alongside corresponding body camera video providing a more comprehensive picture of the situation,” said Aydin Ghajar, General Manager at Axon Air. “Skydio’s leading position in autonomous flight aligns with Axon’s vision of providing public safety with the latest technology to enhance response times and offering first responders solutions that provide a safer, more effective method of gaining situational awareness and gathering evidence.”

With the Axon Evidence integration, the Skydio drone will be able to connect to Wi-Fi securely and automatically when plugged into a power source, upon which the system will automatically upload any new photos or video to Axon Evidence, tagging them with the name of the pilot and any additional data necessary for entry into evidence, guaranteeing chain of custody and removing the need for administrative overhead from officers and staff.

The Skydio and Axon Air teams will continue to collaborate in the following months, developing new offerings such as an integration with Axon’s real-time operations platform, Respond, which will provide command staff and 911 dispatchers with access to live streamed views from on-the-ground body and dashboard cameras alongside Skydio drones, granting a more complete picture of the incident. Skydio will also offer an integration with Axon Air powered by DroneSense, allowing law enforcement agencies to more easily track pilot time and drone usage across their Skydio fleet.

Read more about Skydio drones, the Skydio Axon Partnership, and automated drones for public safety.

Ian attended Dominican University of California, where he received a BA in English in 2019. With a lifelong passion for writing and storytelling and a keen interest in technology, he is now contributing to DroneLife as a staff writer.