NH company makes blimps to scan for drones at southern border

A New Hampshire company is building blimps to be used at the southern U.S. border to monitor for drones used by drug traffickers.Fremont-based Altaeros recently secured a contract to send its Aerostat drone blimp to the southern border, where it should be deployed by the end of the month.Altaeros officials said the Aerostat has several advantages over models that are currently in operation. They said it only takes about a day to set up, and it can be easily moved to where it’s needed.Altaeros said its model costs about 50-80% less to operate then a typical one, thanks to software that allows the Aerostat to function without a crew on the ground.>> Download the free WMUR app to get updates on the go: Apple | Google Play <<“Altaeros has developed an autonomous control leveraging AI that allows the system to fly itself,” said company CEO Ben Glass.U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan received a briefing on the technology and saw it deployed. Part of the mission will be to prevent drones that are being used by drug traffickers to surveil the U.S. border “What this kind of technology does is really, in an automated way, gives our customs and protection agents much more visibility into what’s going on at the border with minimal need for additional personnel,” Hassan said.It takes about seven to nine months to build an Aerostat, but the company said the goal is to get production time down to five to six months.

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