The world of drones has entered the useful arena, for here in New Jersey police departments and other agencies are beginning to use drones to look for lost persons, surveillance of dangerous situations and get eye in the sky photos of accidents. Most of these drones are not something that you the consumer can go out and buy at your local hobby shop.
Per Sussex County Sheriff Michael Strada, who is the president of the Sheriffs’ Association of New Jersey, “Different sheriffs’ departments are using drones not only for search and rescue purposes, but also we can use a drone at crime scenes. Some counties are using them at crime scenes to get an overall picture of what’s happening, drones are also used at the scenes of serious crashes — Specifically, fatal motor vehicle accidents where you can get a good shot, get a great picture or a video from up above of the whole scene.”
They have also been used “in situations where you may have a barricaded suspect somewhere and you can’t get too close, or you might not want to get too close right away until you get a good look at the scene.” Strada went on to say in these situations “we can send a drone up as opposed to getting an officer so close to maybe a hostile situation, and the drone can take a look and it’s right in real time. It can help you determine what you might or might not be facing in terms of danger.”
These drones are very large quadcopters (a quadcopter is a multi-rotor aircraft) that can lift camera equipment that can see in the infrared spectrum and/or have very powerful lens that can bring far away object into view. While I see that the possible uses are almost too numerous to count, what has to be taken into account is the reality that the weather can easily ground a quadcopter. I realize that he is talking about much larger versions of quadcopters than most civilian flyer’s use, but when it gets very windy and/or the skies open up with precipitation even these machines will be grounded.
Any flying machine has limitations and we have to be realistic in how much can be done by these quadcopters. At a special meeting at the New Jersey statehouse Don Sebastian, president and CEO of the New Jersey Innovation Institute at NJIT said that drones could be used in, “delivering emergency medical supplies to a ship stranded offshore, and then recovering samples when brought back to doctors on shore for diagnosis.” Plus drones can also be used to set up portable cell phone relay towers. “It’s an antenna in the sky, so that when ground-based infrastructure is compromised, first-responders, who have their own unique communication frequency can use the cell phone tower to talk to each other.”
Sebastian went on to say that the smaller quadcopters could also be used in the war against mosquitoes that carry dangerous viruses like Zika and West Nile. For example he said that, “There are plenty of remote places where you can’t get easily on foot to see, ‘Is there a bog there? Is there a water collecting and are there larva there?‘ The drone can actually, we believe do this, that’s our next test, set down, take water samples and bring them back for analysis, and even deliver the larvicide that would kill the infecting mosquito.”
I personally think that those who are thinking of all the wondrous applications that quadcopters could be used for, really have to take a step back and take a more realistic view of the currently available technology. One of the biggest limitations is the battery technology that is currently used. While there are advancements just over the horizon, they are not here yet and until batteries last longer and are more powerful quadcopters will not be very practical in the above described situations.
That is my opinion- Jumpin Jersey Mike
