Azur Drones has chosen VISEO and Microsoft Azure to optimize its customer support

Azur Drones is one of the world leaders in autonomous surveillance and inspection drones. The company has developed the SKEYETECH system, a patented drone solution without a remote pilot designed to reinforce security and support operations on sensitive sites. for the surveillance of sensitive and industrial sites. Fully integrated into the customer's existing security system, SKEYETECH is operational 24/7 to carry out missions of suspicion raising, perimeter rounds as well as inspection missions or to assists teams in case of crisis.

After gaining the first approval for an autonomous drone in 2019, Azur Drones has been deployed with leading players in the Energy, Oil&Gas and Chemical sectors in Europe and the Middle East. The company’s new challenges then became the optimization of its customer support and the supervision of its installations worldwide.

Technological prerequisites for an aeronautical context

The challenge for Azur Drones was to establish the technological foundation and architectural principles of their IoT platform in a complex context (aeronautics): security, scalability, integration into their application ecosystem.

"The goal of the project was to implement scalable applications in order to :

- Industrialize the complex deployment of our installations

- Have "real-time" data on the systems installed, regardless of their location (France / Europe / World)

- Be able to quickly process large and complex data, analyse the telemetry of our objects (drone, docking station, weather station, etc.), generate alerts and trigger proactive maintenance actions," explains Emmanuel Barbé, CIO of Azur Drones

The company's international growth, with solutions physically located anywhere in the world, imposes very strong constraints: "We are in a sector where the security of our products (technical architecture, technology, telecommunications, etc.) and their reliability are essential to maintain customer confidence," says Emmanuel.

This project was to enable Azur Drones to demonstrate at least these 3 points as well as the scalability of the solution.

Innovative Microsoft IoT solutions

The company's strategy involves choosing innovative solutions, tailored to its business and to the ramp-up of its activities: "Microsoft is currently supporting us in several technological innovations related to IoT, says Emmanuel. We wanted to stick to the best practices of the recommended architectures and use the service bricks that are essential to the operation of a secure IoT platform (eg: IoT hub, Key Vault, Azure Functions...). "

Agile IoT project management and risk-based steering

VISEO and Azur Drones defined and prioritized very clear goals together from the start of the project: the "Vision Statement".

"The daily meetings allow us to quickly measure any deviations from the plan, to identify new problems, but also to redirect developments, technical choices and the action plan if necessary. This way of working is very important at Azur Drones, so exchanges were naturally facilitated from the start", explains Emmanuel.

Passion for new technologies, drones, IoT and agile: a winning formula for a successful collaboration!

During its integration into the Microsoft For Start-ups program, Azur Drones received proposals from companies certified in the targeted technologies.

The VISEO team and its mindset appealed to Azur Drones employees: "In VISEO, we found part of what makes up Azur Drones' DNA: a passion for new technologies, drones and IoT as a whole, as well as adherence to the agile manifesto. The team obviously had solid experience on innovative IoT projects and underlying architectures. ", says Emmanuel.

As with many projects, it's the people that make the difference: "The commitment and seriousness of the IoT teams was flawless.", concludes Emmanuel.

"Microsoft and Azur Drones came to know our expertise and allowed us to collaborate on these exciting and innovative topics. Our understanding of the business sector, a strong culture in IT and mechatronics, as well as our involvement made the difference in the face of the global competition on this project. We had to tailor and work fast while respecting the security, confidentiality and quality requirements of a project in the medical field. I am happy to finally be able to talk about this project! The entire VISEO team is proud to have contributed to the success of this major project.",concludes David Gougaud, Director of VISEO’s Data Engineering activity in Toulouse.