Future of Public Safety with UAS

Last week during the?Commercial UAV Expo, I spent most of my time in?DroneResponder?Public Safety Summit sessions and speaking with first responders about their use of drones.

It's inspiring to hear the stories of technology makes lives safer for those serving on the front lines of law enforcement, firefighting, and disaster relief.

Future of Public Safety

One of the more interesting panel discussions I attended was about the Future of Public Safety, so I wanted to share my notes. It was clear that this was a stacked panel with some of the leaders in law enforcement and fire UAS programs.

Before I get into the talking points discussed by the panel, it's helpful to frame how public safety organizations utilize drones.

Drones as Tools for First Responders

The primary uses for drones today are assisting a crew on the scene.

• Providing a forward-looking perspective to monitor for dangerous environments or hazards before sending officers.
• Addition perspectives not possible to crews on the ground, looking around corners, checking roofs, rapid damage assessment, and wide-area views of a scene.
• Capturing crime scenes with 2D orthomosiacs and 3D models for future review, measurements, or presentation in court.
• Drone payloads can include a microphone and speaker, which can be helpful in hostage lockdown situations or for communicating with people stuck in a structure fire or collapse.
• Specialized on-board sensors for monitoring air quality or hazmat identification.
• Search for missing or lost individuals using visual and thermal cameras to cover a large area faster than ground crews with more detailed images than crewed aircraft.
• With staff shortages, drones can be a force multiplier while reducing risks.

To help in these cases, emergency responders have access to a COA for?Tactical BVLOS operations. This waiver allows them to navigate around a scene for situation awareness without worrying about the requirement of maintaining line of sight or putting visual observers at risk. Flight must stay within 1500' of the remote pilot and no higher than 50' above structures or obstacles while staying under 400' AGL.

Drone as First Responder

A relatively new but common term in public safety circles is DFR, Drones as First Responders.

With increased drone technology, reliability, communication protocols, distance limits, and evolving regulations, waivers for flights beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) are becoming more available. This opens up the options for drones to become the first responder, with canines and humans to follow as needed.

This doesn't necessarily mean crews are not deployed, drones just have an advantage of getting on scene faster than any other option. DFR has the potential to save lives, reduce risk, increase situational awareness before arriving onsite, and some cases reduce the need for human involvement.

The Chula Vista Police Department is frequently cited as a leader and model to follow in DFR. They were one of the first law enforcement UAS programs in the country and have had successful results. According to their?current dashboard, drones resulted in 25% of calls being resolved without dispatching a patrol unit. Additionally, drones were the first on the scene in 58% of the calls.

Some examples of DFR include:

• Determining if a patrol unit is required.
• Tracking suspects in vehicles or on foot while officers are on their way to the scene.
• Initial scene triage to determine the scope and type of responders and equipment.
• Identifying potential blocked routes in the case of floods, fires, or protesters.
• Overall situational awareness in under 2 minutes. Chula Vista's current average response time is 115 seconds from dispatch.

Panel Topics

Program Funding?- Case studies like Chula Vista and other successful programs demonstrate the value of adding UAS assets, this doesn't mean funding is any easier. Some programs were able to secure funds through FEMA grants. Another challenge is the on-going costs of maintaining equipment. Units often get a once-a-year allocation of funds meaning battery cycle limits or equipment issues could ground a program until the money becomes available again.

Blue UAS?- Mention drones to any first responder or government organization, and it's guaranteed that the Blue UAS list comes up about as fast as Chula Vista drones respond to a scene. This panel was no expectation; I think it came up before they even completed panelist introductions.

The?Blue UAS list?is an often over-used and out-of-context list of approved drones from the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), initially designed for the Department of Defense to certify the manufacturer, manufacturing standards, and technology used in UAS drones and communications protocol. This list and standard are critical for many high-security and military organizations.

Some states, such as?Florida, insist that if an organization uses government funds for a UAS program, they must use purchase Blue UAS listed systems. In other cases, organizations or officials default to the list, assuming they can't go wrong if DoD relies on it.

There are some significant push-backs to this model from the first responder community.

• Cost vs. Features?- We already covered how tough funding is for many programs. The current list of Blue UAS drones are manufactured and/or assembled in the US or Europe with approved components. These manufactors struggle to compete on price and features compared to many of the larger and primarily Chinese-manufactured drones. Unless formal restrictions exist, agencies prefer to not purchase Blue UAS drones. "We've been spoiled by DJI" was one comment. Ease of use, latest technology, consistent interfaces, 3rd party integrations, "works out of the box", and minimal training needs are critical factors in first responders. Finally, grants and organizations providing funding tend to use DJI as the benchmark for defining the cost of a UAS setup. A budget for a five drone fleet often equates to just a single "Blue UAS approved" system.
• What's the Logic?- Other than being approved for DoD uses and having a US government stamp of approval, it's frustrating not having a clear understanding of the requirements to be secure and reliable enough for first responder use. Everyone has concerns and respect for the potential risks with communications and data security. The general consensus is the industry needs clear standards and evaluation that organizations can understand and use for UAS selection criteria instead of a small list of approved devices. There's a push to leverage clearer standards around?NDAA compliance?to get more "secure and approved" platforms at a more reasonable feature-to-price ratio.
• Third-Party Apps and Devices?- Primary security concerns are communication protocols and the potential of sending data and images back to Chinese manufacturers. A challenge of this concern is that many units are leveraging 3rd party controller applications such as?DroneSense. In these cases, drone manufacturer applications are not even being used, which should reduce or eliminate potential data security risks.
• How to Get in the Club?- Another complaint discussed is that it doesn't seem like an easy process to figure out how to get reviewed for inclusion in a future Blue UAS list. Also, the DIU is a small team with limited capacity to review proposals.

Recommendations

Get your voice heard?- panel recommendations are to make your requirements clear to all involved. Help your local/state agencies understand your requirements and drone program value to the community. Research successful programs and talk to your peers. Share your needs and concerns with the manufacturers; most want to do everything they can to assist first responders.

Remote ID

Right behind Blue UAS is the next hot topic of?Remote ID. The panel discussed the value and concerns of making drone telemetry and controller location available to the public. FAA will require manufacturers to provide remote ID compliance for drones produced after Dec 16, 2022 (extended from Sept 16). Starting Sept 16, 2023, all remote pilots must use compliant drones manufactured with remote ID or an add-on transmitter. I'm not going to touch on the challenges of international standards around remote ID. It's tough enough following US activity on this topic.

There's value to law enforcement in knowing the location of the controlling pilot when flights are in restricted areas or obstructing emergency response activity. But, of course, this assumes the pilot is using a remote ID-compliant drone.

The increase in BYLOS flights combined with the rise in general public drones and the ever-growing delivery drone flights would not be possible without the airspace situational awareness that remote ID and unmanned traffic management (UTM) solutions will provide.

There will still be a need for drone detection and monitoring for cases where rogue or nefarious pilots are intentionally not using remote ID systems. Many agencies are already starting to implement these tools or actively researching for future deployment.

When discussing the concern for the general public to know the location of law enforcement pilot locations, there didn't seem to be a concern. In the case of DFR and BVLOS, this location could be securely in a building somewhere. There was also some talk of potential law enforcement exclusions to remote ID.

Waiver Process Improving

The panel briefly discussed the use of Tactical BVLOS and additional waivers. There seems to be a positive trend of faster approvals on waiver requests. A typical request for up to 3 miles and 400' AGL has been processed in under two weeks, which seems to be a considerable improvement.

Tips for New Programs

There are many successful programs to follow. Share and learn from your peers. One of the top recommendations is to make public outreach and awareness a top priority.?DroneResponders?is an excellent resource for finding other programs to share tips with. Be sure to add your program to the list as well.

Add Commercial UAV Expo to your calendar and budget

All of this was from a single session and a few side conversations that followed. I highly recommend adding this to your calendar next year.

Let's Connect

As an active volunteer with the Civil Air Patrol, I'm constantly looking for more ways I can support the local community and response teams. So if there's any way we might be able to learn together or some way I might be able to assist you or your program's research, please reach out.

#uas #drones #firstresponders #lawenforcement #firefighters #disasterresponse #expouav