Corona War : Policing And Crowd Control Using Drones
Augmenting ground teams with drones’ gives police departments a wider field of surveillance over a large area and the drones can zoom to areas of interest, and the ability to remotely assess an evolving situation.
Surveillance
Drones can be launched either from pre-fixed location(s) to reach the scene of interest, while police are still in the process of finalising the first response based on the information received and help them to see places and things that fixed cameras or CCTVs cannot.
Outlining the different functions the drones can carry out, Milind Kulshreshtha, C4I expert, says, that “They can capture pictures as required for police’s situation assessment, investigation and decision making; Send video live feed to the Police Control Room for better situation assessment and response; set off a Police warning alarm for alerting the crowd and can also be used as a hailer.”
Crowd Monitoring
Augmenting ground teams with drones’ gives police departments a wider field of surveillance over a large area and the drones can zoom to areas of interest, and the ability to remotely assess an evolving situation.
Traffic Arrangement Scene Analysis
The last couple of days have witnessed huge migrant population moving across the country. According to the C4I expert, “The drones can help the administration with a better crowd status situation and undertaking check on vehicle and travellers inside for infection, once passengers have come out of the vehicle, a small drone carrying some mask pieces can first be sent near the passengers for them to wear the mask before any medical staff closes in near them.”
So How Does The Drone Management System Work?
Based on the city limits and on the endurance of a multi-rotor drone, the States can divide the city into a grid network and each drone can be located optimally in this network.
“Launch of a drone (as per the most suitable path) shall occur on a regular basis as per a pre-defined duty cycle. The drone shall fly to the designated spot, send live feed (using day/night camera) of the place, take pictures and set off a police alarm, if required. And this can occur as a first response while the mobile unit moves in to handle the situation. This requires a Flight mission planning and recharging system for drones,” says Kulshreshtha.
“Mission planning shall be primarily dependent on the flight time of a drone and battery charge/recharging time. A dynamic environment like wind conditions, rains etc. also play an important role in their operations and an interface for restricting their flights during adverse weather conditions is required. With flights in the air reduced to minimal, with adequate coordination with Airport Authority of India, each of the City administration needs to leverage drone technology for facing the challenging time in-store in coming weeks. This shall also reduce the manpower dependency on an overstretched police manpower,” he concludes.
