Assessments · Capability 01
Drone Vulnerability & Risk Assessment
A DVRA establishes what is actually flying over a site, what that aircraft could reach, where detection and procedure break down under a real incursion, and what to do about it first. It is a documented method with named outputs at every stage. It is not a walkthrough or a product demonstration.
What It Answers
Four questions, answered in writing.
WHAT IS UP THERE
Actual observed and credible activity over the site, not a generic threat catalog. Which platforms, launched from where, and whether the same aircraft has been back.
WHAT IT CAN REACH
The assets that matter mapped against approach corridors, sight lines and standoff. Being overflown is not the same as being exposed, and the difference is worth knowing.
WHERE IT BREAKS
The point at which detection, procedure or authority fails during an actual incursion. That is rarely the sensor. It is usually the decision path after it.
WHAT TO DO FIRST
A prioritized, costed, vendor-neutral mitigation strategy. Sequenced so the first item can be funded and started on its own.
The Sequence
Five stages. Each one leaves something behind.
Every stage produces a named artifact. If an engagement stops early, the work completed to that point still stands on its own and can be handed to a decision-maker.
Environment assessed
Site geometry, approach corridors, sensor lines of sight and existing coverage.
Threat profile developed
Which platforms, which operators, which motives are credible against this site.
Defensive gaps identified
Where detection, procedure or authority breaks down under a real incursion.
Tabletop exercise conducted
Your people, your chain of command, an incident that does not go to plan.
Mitigation strategy delivered
Prioritized, costed, vendor-neutral, and written to be handed to a decision-maker.
DELIVERED UNDER · ASSESSMENTS
Sample Deliverable
An excerpt from a DVRA report, at a generic site.
Illustrative site: a mid-size water treatment campus with a perimeter fence line, an administration building and open reservoir infrastructure. Observed activity over the trailing assessment period included occasional recreational flights along the adjacent public road corridor, and one flight that entered directly over the reservoir and loitered near the chemical storage area before departing. No hostile intent is asserted from a single event. The profile treats the pattern as a credible reconnaissance-type incursion that warrants a documented response procedure rather than an unusual occurrence to be dismissed.
GAP REGISTER · EXCERPT
Every recommendation in a DVRA gap register is something the site itself, or an authorized agency it coordinates with, can act on. None ask a site owner to disrupt, take control of, seize, disable, destroy or otherwise mitigate an aircraft, an action reserved by statute to specific federal, state and local agencies.
Authority
What a private firm can and cannot do.
In the United States, mitigating a drone is limited to federal agencies with statutory authority and, since July 2026, to state and local law enforcement and correctional agencies certified under the SAFER SKIES Act. ClearPoint does not mitigate. ClearPoint detects, tracks, assesses, documents, trains and coordinates with the agencies that hold that authority, and no assessment we produce will recommend that a client mitigate outside that authority.
The Interagency Legal Advisory on UAS Detection and Mitigation Technologies, issued by DOJ, FAA, DHS and FCC and still the current guidance, explains why: mitigation by a private party can violate the Aircraft Sabotage Act, the aircraft piracy statute, federal laws against interfering with satellite signals such as GPS, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and federal communications law against jamming. Legality turns on what a system actually does. Radar, electro-optical, infrared and acoustic sensing raise fewer concerns, while RF detection that intercepts or decodes drone-to-controller signals can violate wiretap or pen-register law. That is why ClearPoint’s own work stops at detection, tracking, assessment, documentation, training and coordination, and why a DVRA hands off any mitigation decision to the agency that holds the authority to make it.
What ClearPoint does deliver is the part organizations can act on lawfully: detection and monitoring, documented procedure, trained personnel, coordination with the agencies that do hold authority, and a written basis for the decisions taken.
Common questions
What is a DVRA?
A Drone Vulnerability & Risk Assessment is a structured method for determining a site’s exposure to unmanned aircraft. It establishes the credible threat, maps the assets that matter against how an aircraft could actually reach them, identifies where detection and procedure break down, and produces a prioritized mitigation strategy.
It is a documented process with defined outputs, which is what separates it from a walkthrough or a vendor site survey.
How is this different from a drone detection system demo?
A demonstration shows what one vendor’s equipment can do. An assessment establishes what your site actually needs. That may be less equipment than you were about to buy, differently placed, or none at all until the procedure behind it exists.
ClearPoint holds no hardware line, so the recommendation is not shaped by what we would otherwise be selling you.
Do we need our own C-UAS equipment before an assessment is useful?
No. An assessment run before procurement is generally worth more than one run after, because its findings can still change what you buy and where it goes.
Who should be involved from our side?
Typically whoever owns physical security for the site, whoever would actually be on shift during an incursion, and someone who can speak to the operational consequence of the assets being assessed. Tabletop exercises are considerably more useful when the real chain of command is in the room.
What do we receive at the end?
The artifacts named in the sequence above: site baseline, threat profile, gap register, exercise findings and mitigation strategy. All written to be read by people who were not present, including reviewers, auditors and boards.
Can ClearPoint take down a drone over our facility?
No. In the United States, mitigating a drone is limited to federal agencies with statutory authority and, since July 2026, to state and local law enforcement and correctional agencies certified under the SAFER SKIES Act. ClearPoint does not mitigate. ClearPoint detects, tracks, assesses, documents, trains and coordinates with the agencies that hold that authority.
Related
Start with the decision you need to make.
Whether you’re evaluating drone risk or ready to assess a specific site, we’ll help you identify the next step.