LUGN Security adds airspace monitoring and drone detection to its service portfolio

LUGN Security from Heerlen is adding airspace monitoring and drone detection to its service portfolio. The company, which deploys sensors, drones and AI to secure large sites and infrastructure, will now also help clients set up systems that give them visibility and control over the airspace above their locations.

LUGN Security was founded in 2021 and raised a Series B round of €36.8 million in January 2022. The new services build on the operational foundation the company has already established through the use of drones for ground-level security tasks.

What the expansion entails

With the new division, LUGN Security is addressing two related challenges: detecting drones in airspace and helping organisations put in place the processes needed to act on that information. In practical terms, this means setting up detection systems that identify unmanned aerial vehicles in the vicinity of a site, and advising organisations on how to manage the resulting airspace data.

The focus is explicitly on detection and monitoring, not on actively neutralising drones. That distinction matters: jamming or shooting down drones in the Netherlands is subject to strict legal and technical conditions and is reserved for specific government authorities. LUGN Security's offering sits firmly on the civil, detection-oriented end of the spectrum.

Airspace management above private sites is a technically and legally complex issue. Organisations such as ports, power plants, logistics hubs and other critical infrastructure operators have a growing need for insight into what is happening above their locations, driven in part by the rapid growth of commercial and recreational drone use.

Building on existing expertise

LUGN Security positions the expansion as a logical step from its existing field of operations. The company already deploys drones as part of automated security systems, combining sensor data, image analysis and AI to monitor large sites. According to the company, that experience operating unmanned aerial vehicles provides insight into how drones are used and which detection methods are effective against them.

This is an approach that appears regularly in the security sector: companies active on the supply side of a technology also enter the market for detecting or managing that same technology. In the case of drones, this applies both to specialised counter-UAS companies and to broader security service providers that are adding airspace as a new area of focus.

Growing market for drone detection

Demand for drone detection and airspace monitoring is rising across Europe, partly as a result of a series of incidents in which drones were spotted above airports, military installations and other sensitive locations. Governments and private organisations are looking for ways to receive timely warnings and gain insight into who is using their airspace.

In the Netherlands, regulations around unmanned aviation are also a factor. The European U-space regulation, which aims to establish a shared digital airspace framework for drones, is still being implemented. Until that framework is fully in place, organisations have little automatic visibility into what is flying above their sites. Service providers such as LUGN Security are stepping into that gap with their own detection solutions.

For Dutch founders and investors active in the physical security and deeptech space, LUGN Security's move illustrates how a company can extend its initial technology base into adjacent market segments. The combination of drone operations, sensor integration and AI-driven analysis can be applied in multiple directions, and airspace monitoring is one of them. How significant actual market demand turns out to be will become clear in the period ahead, as the company builds its client portfolio around these new services.