This is the fifth article in an ongoing series examining the role of UAVs—commonly called "drones"—exploring the uses of unmanned aerial technology outside of traditional or well-publicized wartime uses. Read the first, second, third, and fourth articles.
From law enforcement to search and rescue missions, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) offer myriad solutions to domestic public sector challenges.
As the focus of the unmanned systems industry shifts from international to domestic markets, it is logical that their proven uses overseas be applied to domestic considerations, starting with our borders and then working in. As The Wall Street Journal reported in August 2012, there has been a movement to integrate battlespace technology into domestic security.
Static aerial observation systems that were normalized to track pattern of life movements in Iraq and Afghanistan can be easily applied protect homeland security through the monitoring of American borders. This aerial observation can track illegal border crossings and trafficking routes, which facilitates the efficient allocation of resources and prioritization of countermeasures to mitigate nefarious activities.
In addition to practices that became well-established in overseas operations, there are many applications of UAS technology that are adoptable and adaptable. Of the many utilities of UAVs in domestic applications, perhaps the most important value is that the systems can offer significant protection to our public defenders. With proper use, public entities from local jurisdictions to federal agencies can apply a variety of UAS technologies to protect their personnel and augment their operational effectiveness.
Perhaps the most obvious candidate to adopt widespread UAV usage is the law enforcement community. From evidence collection, to car chases, to identification of illegal drug cultivation, production, and distribution, UAS surveillance can provide irrefutable data to build and conclude cases. There are undoubtedly issues that need to be debated and addressed in public forums about issues of privacy but, in reality, using UAVs to track movements for law enforcement purposes is no different than the use of a helicopter to watch O.J. Simpson travel down the highway in his Bronco, or using manned aircraft to scan for illegal marijuana grows in rural areas.
UAV feeds could also be retained for retrospective surveillance in the future. Last year an SUV was carjacked from a woman in urban Washington, DC with a 5 month old baby inside. In the case that real-time tracking was possible, imagine if the carjacker’s movements could be traced backwards in time to establish a pattern of life framework that could drastically increase the likelihood of recovery of the infant; it is unlikely that any mothers would complain about that capability.
Another situation in which UASs can make vital contributions is with search and rescue operations. From beach rescues of swimmers caught in riptides to location lost hikers to identifying victims of environmental disasters, UAVs can cover more space with less fuel for longer periods of times with observation capabilities that exceed the human eye’s capability to identify the human form. These capabilities come in the form of payloads that are carried by the UAVs, which can provide multispectral imaging that can allow for the tracking of human indicators like heat signatures—a capability that far surpasses human vision, particularly when searching in wooded areas or bodies of water.
Yet another area in which UAVs can make critical—and lifesaving—accommodations is in firefighting. While aerial observation has long been a critical component of monitoring large scale fire movement and character, there are many vulnerabilities of manned aircrafts in these unstable environments. They are simple weaknesses like visibility impairments, flight duration limitations, and exposure risks, but they can be offset with the use of remotely piloted systems.
Even in areas with incredibly dense smoke obstructions, UAVs can track things like fire trajectory, wind direction, and movement of both victims and firefighters. A proof of concept for using UAVs to see through smokescreens was made overseas in Iraq, where combatants lit fires to provide smoke cover but were foiled when UAV infrared payloads could see through this to identify and track human heat signatures. In a domestic context, large scale casualties, such as the tragic loss of 19 firefighters in Prescott, Arizona in July 2013, could be better mitigated with the improved observational skills offered by UAVs.
Furthermore, there is also the potential to transition UAVs from observational to operational roles, wherein they could carry extinguishers in bladders as part of the vehicle payload. This task is high-risk due to the difficulty of balancing weight changes in a moving aircraft, and even more dangerous because of the unstable environment created by the intense thermal activity. When discussing the perils of search and rescue missions out west during times of heavy forest fire activity, veteran UAV operator Chad Rader assessed that, “Losing a $200,000 UAV is a lot better than losing a $2m helicopter with 4 personnel on board.”
This piece speaks little of the myriad private commercial activities that could offer public benefits, such as precision agriculture assistance to produce high-yield crops efficiently or power line monitoring to fix damaged infrastructure after storms, but is intended to encourage dialogue and curiosity about the potential uses of such integrated systems. Furthermore, for both environmentalists and fiscal conservatives, UAVs are much more fuel efficient than traditional manned systems that have been used in the aforementioned circumstances, and use of these systems will push both pollution and fuel costs down.
Unmanned aerial systems offer the same capabilities as manned solutions, but do so with lighter footprints in both resource expenditure and visibility and with fewer risks to human lives and operator error.
Whitney Grespin has worked in contingency contracting and international development on four continents. She currently specializes in security sector reform and capacity building.
Photo Credit: Ars Electronica (cc).
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Drones in Our World, Part V: Domestic Possibilities
December 27, 2013
This is the fifth article in an ongoing series examining the role of UAVs—commonly called "drones"—exploring the uses of unmanned aerial technology outside of traditional or well-publicized wartime uses. Read the first, second, third, and fourth articles.
From law enforcement to search and rescue missions, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) offer myriad solutions to domestic public sector challenges.
As the focus of the unmanned systems industry shifts from international to domestic markets, it is logical that their proven uses overseas be applied to domestic considerations, starting with our borders and then working in. As The Wall Street Journal reported in August 2012, there has been a movement to integrate battlespace technology into domestic security.
Static aerial observation systems that were normalized to track pattern of life movements in Iraq and Afghanistan can be easily applied protect homeland security through the monitoring of American borders. This aerial observation can track illegal border crossings and trafficking routes, which facilitates the efficient allocation of resources and prioritization of countermeasures to mitigate nefarious activities.
In addition to practices that became well-established in overseas operations, there are many applications of UAS technology that are adoptable and adaptable. Of the many utilities of UAVs in domestic applications, perhaps the most important value is that the systems can offer significant protection to our public defenders. With proper use, public entities from local jurisdictions to federal agencies can apply a variety of UAS technologies to protect their personnel and augment their operational effectiveness.
Perhaps the most obvious candidate to adopt widespread UAV usage is the law enforcement community. From evidence collection, to car chases, to identification of illegal drug cultivation, production, and distribution, UAS surveillance can provide irrefutable data to build and conclude cases. There are undoubtedly issues that need to be debated and addressed in public forums about issues of privacy but, in reality, using UAVs to track movements for law enforcement purposes is no different than the use of a helicopter to watch O.J. Simpson travel down the highway in his Bronco, or using manned aircraft to scan for illegal marijuana grows in rural areas.
UAV feeds could also be retained for retrospective surveillance in the future. Last year an SUV was carjacked from a woman in urban Washington, DC with a 5 month old baby inside. In the case that real-time tracking was possible, imagine if the carjacker’s movements could be traced backwards in time to establish a pattern of life framework that could drastically increase the likelihood of recovery of the infant; it is unlikely that any mothers would complain about that capability.
Another situation in which UASs can make vital contributions is with search and rescue operations. From beach rescues of swimmers caught in riptides to location lost hikers to identifying victims of environmental disasters, UAVs can cover more space with less fuel for longer periods of times with observation capabilities that exceed the human eye’s capability to identify the human form. These capabilities come in the form of payloads that are carried by the UAVs, which can provide multispectral imaging that can allow for the tracking of human indicators like heat signatures—a capability that far surpasses human vision, particularly when searching in wooded areas or bodies of water.
Yet another area in which UAVs can make critical—and lifesaving—accommodations is in firefighting. While aerial observation has long been a critical component of monitoring large scale fire movement and character, there are many vulnerabilities of manned aircrafts in these unstable environments. They are simple weaknesses like visibility impairments, flight duration limitations, and exposure risks, but they can be offset with the use of remotely piloted systems.
Even in areas with incredibly dense smoke obstructions, UAVs can track things like fire trajectory, wind direction, and movement of both victims and firefighters. A proof of concept for using UAVs to see through smokescreens was made overseas in Iraq, where combatants lit fires to provide smoke cover but were foiled when UAV infrared payloads could see through this to identify and track human heat signatures. In a domestic context, large scale casualties, such as the tragic loss of 19 firefighters in Prescott, Arizona in July 2013, could be better mitigated with the improved observational skills offered by UAVs.
Furthermore, there is also the potential to transition UAVs from observational to operational roles, wherein they could carry extinguishers in bladders as part of the vehicle payload. This task is high-risk due to the difficulty of balancing weight changes in a moving aircraft, and even more dangerous because of the unstable environment created by the intense thermal activity. When discussing the perils of search and rescue missions out west during times of heavy forest fire activity, veteran UAV operator Chad Rader assessed that, “Losing a $200,000 UAV is a lot better than losing a $2m helicopter with 4 personnel on board.”
This piece speaks little of the myriad private commercial activities that could offer public benefits, such as precision agriculture assistance to produce high-yield crops efficiently or power line monitoring to fix damaged infrastructure after storms, but is intended to encourage dialogue and curiosity about the potential uses of such integrated systems. Furthermore, for both environmentalists and fiscal conservatives, UAVs are much more fuel efficient than traditional manned systems that have been used in the aforementioned circumstances, and use of these systems will push both pollution and fuel costs down.
Unmanned aerial systems offer the same capabilities as manned solutions, but do so with lighter footprints in both resource expenditure and visibility and with fewer risks to human lives and operator error.
Whitney Grespin has worked in contingency contracting and international development on four continents. She currently specializes in security sector reform and capacity building.
Photo Credit: Ars Electronica (cc).
