Robocop takes flight: Miami police turn to drones to monitor standoffs from the air

January 25, 2012

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Source: The Daily

See Video: Here

Hunched together over a laptop, men in flight suits direct their aircraft to the target and train its long-range camera on a suspect’s location. The real-time video feed is passed to the special response team standing nearby making last-minute preparations to raid the location.

Once officers launch the assault, the unmanned vehicle remains aloft, watching it all unfold below.

The men in flight suits do not belong to any unit of the military, but to the Miami-Dade County police aviation unit. And the scenario is just one possible use for the county’s new unmanned air vehicle program.

“Our job is to get a picture,” said Sgt. Andy Cohen, one of the two officers in charge of the drone program.

Each of the 12 men trained to use the system spends most of his time piloting the police department’s conventional airplanes and helicopters. So far, they have yet to operate the drone in a real-life operation. But the expectation is that drones will begin taking the place of manned aircraft, especially in high-risk situations.

“A helicopter is a big target if a gunman wants to take a shot at it,” said Cohen.

The Miami program involves two T-Hawk Micro-Air Vehicles, which look like small vacuum cleaners and sound like lawnmowers. The U.S. manufacturer, Honeywell, says such units have been deployed with military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Miami-Dade police will use the system only for operations involving a hostage or a suspected gunman who is barricaded in a fixed location. But other creative uses will likely be found. SWAT team officers have asked Cohen if a drone could drop a smoke or flash-bang grenade to distract a suspect. Hostage negotiators wondered if it could deliver a cellphone to a barricaded individual. In the case of these particular drones, the answer to both was no — they have no payload capability.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which currently regulates such drones, is working to develop a final set of regulations that will apply broadly to the hundreds of unmanned aircraft being developed by military contractors, academic researchers and backyard hobbyists.

For police departments facing tighter budgets, a drone system, with a price tag of about $200,000, may be a cost-effective solution for maintaining aerial assets. “This is the future for a lot of police units, as many places are downsizing,” said Cohen. “It enables you to do things at a cheaper cost.”

For Miami-Dade taxpayers, the cost of the county’s program was hard to beat: $1 total to county taxpayers. A 2008 federal grant paid for the rest.