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The Economist on the positive potential of civilian drones (via Business Insider):

WHENEVER a hiker gets lost in Mesa County, a rugged area in western Colorado, Benjamin Miller of the local police force does not bother to join the search on foot.

His department is a trailblazer in the use of unmanned aircraft, and he launches a drone equipped with an infrared camera to search from the skies. No wayward ramblers have been rescued in this way yet, but he hopes to find one soon.

Drones are best known for their role in the Afghan war, where they both monitor and strike at enemy forces. Now the Federal Aviation Administration has been ordered to find a way to integrate them into American airspace by 2015. The attraction of drones for domestic users is their ability to carry sensors, such as cameras and spectrometers, rather than weapons. This suggests they could be useful in commerce and research, as well as policing. Already scores of organisations have received special approval from the FAA to fly drones. Although there is no regularly updated master list in the public domain, organisations that have received permission range from universities in North Dakota and Michigan to the Departments of Agriculture and Energy. A number are police departments, and it is this development that is stirring up concerns about privacy and protests from local residents.

Their fears are centred on the prospect of surveillance. Since drones can be far cheaper to buy than helicopters--tens of thousands of dollars, as against a few million--the worry is that cameras will be sent up into the sky far more frequently. Even if they are not on a deliberate spy mission, they may capture incidental footage that leads to an investigation, such as evidence of marijuana plantations. Still, at least in Mesa County, the drones have been used for search and rescue efforts and photographing crime scenes. "We're not spying on everybody," says Mr Miller. "We haven't done a single surveillance mission."

In any case, it may not be so easy for a police department to perform round-the-clock surveillance. Their drones are much less sophisticated than military types like Predators, which can remain aloft for 40 hours at a height of 25,000 feet or 8,000 metres (although the Department of Homeland Security has purchased ten Reapers, a new version of the Predator, for border patrols.) The FAA specifies that drones used by public-safety agencies must weigh 4.4lb (2 kilograms) or less, which can be increased to 25lb if the operator is judged proficient. And they are governed by strict rules in the air. They cannot fly higher than 400 feet and must remain within the line of sight of the operator.

Some police forces, however, face obstacles. Florida lawmakers have proposed limiting their use in the state. And in Seattle, two drones that were bought in 2010 for police use have never gone into service. After a hullabaloo, the mayor announced that the programme was to be scrapped. It will soon be easier for police forces to have more eyes in the sky, but first they will have to win over a hostile public.



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  • Yup, destroying a few buildings wasn't their main victory :(

  • Moderator

    Its scarey just how much americans have lost since Sept 11.

    Just one more example.

     

  • The FAA representative told me over the phone that SAR is NOT considered recreational or a hobby... therefore it IS commercial, regardless of profit or not.  Its silly, but its true.

  • Flying Monkey,

    Anything that isn't commercial is legal to do, and I don't recall seeing any specific rule that would make SAR any different, unless you're trying to run it as a business.  

  • The problem (here in the USA anyways) is that flying UAVs or even our privately owned fpv r/c toys in a SAR activity is illegal according to the FAA.  Whenever we try to set up and help the news media thinks its cool, and puts us on tv, then the FAA sees it and calls us to shut us down!  So how can we get the word out to the public that these things can be used for SAR if we're not allowed to do it??

  • I feel like people don't get excited enough about search and rescue aspects of drones.  Imagine for a faction of the cost of a single engine plane, you could send out 5 drones for a search and rescue mission.  You may have one person watching a group of monitors, you may have one person flying one and have a few people just watching the others.  Even if you don't have enough people to watch everything, just record it, and have a team watch it later, you have the GPS coordinates if you see something from 4 hours ago.

    Say you see something that looks like a person, well send more drones that way, hell send the real plane that way, go send people on foot, but you can still keep birds in the air.  You don't have to stop because the pilot is tired, or the weather gets bad?  Say you lose a drone?  Worst case you're out maybe $1,000? (that's fuel for the small plane for a few flights), but you know where it went down, just send someone out to recover it, not everything is lost.


    Of course to get more range you need bigger drones, but still, the possibilities here are endless and very exciting.

  • After drones start doing Frequent Great humanitarian acts ( saving  lives etc. probably with amateur operators)and they Make National and World media Attention . The public will lighten up and look at drones in a different light .

    Drones are here and here to stay And it might take until the next generation of kids growing up to break through the Doom and gloom some of the masses seem to possess.There will always be the nay sayers  Not just drones any new technology takes a beating at the hands of the ignorant ?? usual they are just un informed The guys here on Diy Drones will play a key role in turning thing around 

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