Pirates use small ships and attack large commercial ships at night. They board ships and take the crew and contents hostage. There are no mobile long-range detection tools with aerial insight to give the crew information about nearby pirates. Ship captains, therefore, avoid sailing past known danger zones (East Coast of Africa). They go faster in coastal areas – as no ship travelling faster than 18 knots have ever been boarded successfully. Both of these bring extra fuel expenses and time wasted due to longer routes chosen.

The total cost of piracy to the shipping industry, from insurance and time lost, is estimated at over €6B/year.

Upteko’s multipurpose drone system has a feature called perimeter.
This feature allows any member of the crew to investigate surrounding vessels approaching the ship. Within the drone system, a built-in feature is added to allow a crew member with no prior drone experience, to operate and control the aerial camera in any direction.