Drones

Drones for Public Security – DRONERESPONDERS survey outcomes

The relationship between drones and public safety has changed fundamentally, said Charles Werner – and he would know. After 45 years in the fire department, he retired as fire chief from Charlottesville, Virginia, and founded and ran DRONERESPONDERS, a global alliance of emergency agencies with more than 1,000 member organizations worldwide.

“In the last few years I’ve seen people come to an understanding,” said Werner. “Drones are more than just toys. Once people see what they can do, it quickly becomes part of the normal response in an emergency. Then when it is not available, people ask, ‘Where is the drone?’ “

Charles Werner is retired fire chief in Charlottesville, Virginia and director of the DRONERESPONDERS network.

With this shift, new approaches have come about how drones are used and what kind of missions they can perform. As an example, Werner cites the development of cross-agency drone teams to better serve the entire community in the event of a major incident.

“In York County, Virginia, for example, there is a combined team that brings together both fire and law enforcement agencies,” he said.

The advantage of this approach is that whenever the agency concerned is faced with a serious emergency – such as a major building fire or an incident involving active riflemen – they want all of their forces on the front lines. In the event of a three-alarm fire, for example, the fire chief wants to bring every firefighter under control on a hose line. However, the burden on law enforcement during the same incident is much less, which means a police officer is likely to be available to fly the drone.

“In addition, all participants save costs for training and equipment thanks to the cross-agency approach,” explains Werner.
Another trend is for agencies to take advantage of new applications for drone technology as soon as they gain operational experience with it.

“First of all, they are flying more missions than they originally expected,” said Werner. “That means they need more pilots. Plus, they’re thinking about new missions for these planes, and now they realize they need one with a powerful zoom lens, or the ability to deliver a payload like a flotation device – and the little plane they started with didn’t all these skills, so start looking at bigger platforms. “

One trend that has not changed is that the use of drones is being transferred to existing staff as a secondary obligation: This means that someone who is already employed by the agency as a firefighter or police officer is trained in how to operate the drone – instead of a qualified one Pilot from outside the organization.

Grow fast
DRONERESPONDERS started in April 2019 and has been growing rapidly since then: around 75 new members are added every week. One thing that surprised Werner is the increase in international membership.

“When we set out to create the organization, we discussed whether we should aim for a global audience or just focus on the United States,” he said. “We finally decided to focus our efforts domestically (and) since the rules for drones are different in different countries, we didn’t think we could keep up.”

Even so, almost 20 percent of the organization’s members are international and represent 55 countries around the globe.
“For me it was really rewarding that every time I check our website we have 10 to 13 people online and they come from everywhere: from all states, but also from South America, Puerto Rico, Ireland, London, Australia, New Zealand, ”said Warner. “People come from all over the world to use the resources we have online.”
In his view, one of the organization’s greatest assets is the membership card, which allows first responders to identify other organizations in their area that are using drones, opening up the opportunity for learning, partnerships and mutual aid agreements. The card is available free of charge on the organization’s website (droneresponders.org).

“You can also become a member via our website,” says Werner. “It only takes about three minutes to sign up.”
Another benefit that DRONERESPONDERS offers its members and the entire public safety community is an annual survey that examines the use of drones by emergency services.

“We’re trying to find out what is happening with public safety: what are the trends out there. We also wanted to know things that are of interest to our corporate customers: How high are their budgets? Which new aircraft do you want to buy? “

The results are there
About 600 agencies responded to the organization’s 2021 survey. Before looking at the results, it is important to know how this survey was conducted: DRONERESPONDERS sent the survey to each of its members as well as to non-affiliates through their profiles on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

This is what social scientists call the “convenience sample,” which is data collected from a group that was easy to reach but not necessarily representative of the general population. If an agency is a member of DRONERESPONDERS or is following the topic on social media, does it have a drone program or is at least considering starting one? You can bet on it!

Convenience sampling does not provide the same level of accuracy or repeatability as a randomly selected sample of the general population, but it can still provide some useful insights. For one, DJI appears to continue to dominate its competitors in the sale of drones for public safety applications. 90 percent of those surveyed stated that they own one or more aircraft from the Chinese manufacturer.

“We saw an interesting change from last year’s survey,” said Werner. “Last year Skydio was the No. 2 manufacturer, but this year Autel Robotics took over that position.”

Other important findings are the fact that less than half of the agencies with drone programs have been active for more than three years. Plus, more than half of the agencies that took part in the survey have an annual budget for their drone program of less than $ 10,000 a year – and grants and donations are a major source of funding for these programs.

Most agencies have fewer than five pilots on their staff and fly fewer than six missions a month, including training missions. Approximately two thirds of the responses came from agencies who rated the ability to fly out of line of sight (BVLOS) as extremely important or very important in order for their program to reach its full potential.

The future
In short, the use of drones in public safety is still in its infancy but is rapidly increasing and leading companies are starting to change the structure of their organizations to reflect the possibilities that this new technology offers.

“We’re starting to see agencies where they literally fly every day,” said Werner. “For example, FDNY will staff its drone units full-time. Chula Vista, California, also employs full-time pilots as part of their program. “

He sees autonomous missions, swarms of drones and BVLOS as the next big steps for the use of drones by the fire brigade and police.

“Another part of it will be artificial intelligence to analyze the data that comes from them,” said Werner. “I’m working with NASA and they’re trying to do something about the disaster assessment – comparing satellite images from before the event with drone images collected afterwards. In our study, we saw 17 identified main use cases, divided into three categories: pre-incident, during-incident, and post-incident. “

He also believes that reliance on nimble-fingered pilots who control the aircraft in real time is likely to decrease as technology advances. “One thing I saw recently made me think it was an Israeli company called Highlander: you decide where the drone should go and you just push a button,” said Werner. “If the flight continues and the battery runs out, another drone will automatically be launched to take its place before the first one returns home, so you can continuously monitor an incident.

“You can still take direct control if you want, but I think this will go the way of the manual transmissions in the car: it’s just easier to use an autonomous system, except in some specialized applications.”

Werner assumes that in the next five to seven years 90 percent of the public safety authorities will have a drone program. He added, “I think that’s the development that is taking place – and it’s going pretty quickly.”
BY PATRICK SHERMAN

Almost half of the authorities surveyed by DRONERESPONDERS in 2021 are law enforcement agencies. Your ability to seize expired assets – cash and even drones – can be an important asset when starting a new program.

Of all the public safety agencies surveyed, the overwhelming majority belong to a local government such as a county or city.

More than half of the public safety agencies that responded to the DRONERESPONDERS survey have had a drone program or are considering developing a drone program for less than three years.

The majority of public safety agencies with a drone program have less than $ 10,000 annual budgets to support their operations, including purchasing new aircraft, according to the DRONERESPONERS survey.

The use of different types of sensors on board drones, such as thermal imaging cameras, can give firefighters and other first aiders valuable insight into what is happening on the ground in an emergency.

According to the DRONERESPONDERS survey, grants and donations are a major source of funding for drone programs nationwide.

While drone programs are still in their infancy across the public safety community, nearly a quarter of the agencies that answered the DRONERESPONDERS survey said they have 10 or more pilots in their organizations.

More than half of the agencies that provided feedback on the DRONERESPONDERS survey said they fly between one and five missions per month, including training missions.

The results of the DRONERESPONDERS survey show strong demand for the ability to operate drones out of line of sight (BVLOS) to aid public safety operations.

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