Considerations in Selecting a Small UAV for Police Operations
Small, or micro, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are quickly entering the market for practical use in law enforcement, choosing the right solution can appear daunting. With equipment purchases typically between 15 and 5 percent of total budgets, making the right decision is essential.
How do you now which system provides the best solution for your needs?
First it is important to define what your needs are. Policing organizations are constantly being asked to do more with greater financial constraints. Therefore the solution needs to be able to support multiple situations such as:
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First we will review the requirements that law enforcement need to evaluate when selecting a small unmanned aerial system, followed by reviewing a system that meets these needs.
Needs
The need for police organizations is to provide immediate aerial intelligence while ensuring the safety of police personnel, civilians and property. There are many ways this need can be met. Each has different costs and requirements. For the purpose of this paper, the focus is on the criteria for the selection of a small UAV that be used to support police operations.
Operation Conditions
Crime and accidents don’t only occur on calm, sunny days. Police must be ready to respond to an incident at any time, therefore the equipment they choose must be capable of use in a variety of weather conditions - from sunny warm days, through rain and snow, high temperatures and significant wind. For example, in Vancouver, Canada, 45% of the days have rain, even in Albuquerque, New Mexico USA, the over 11% of the days have rain. Those numbers represent a significant requirement for a UAV the solution.
With any UAVs, the ability to operate safely in wind is an impfortant selection criterion. Paris France has, on average, 44 days (>12%) each year where the wind is in excess of 34mph (55 km/hr). If an aerial vehicle can not operate in this type of condition, there would be a significant loss to operations. Even New York City averages winds greater than 19km/hr, so a system that cannot reliability operate in even moderate winds would have a negative impact on the usefulness of the product. A fact often overlooked is the wind speed at flying altitude – not just the average wind speed, but also the strength and severity of gusts. With buildings, trees and land formations often blocking or reducing the effect of wind near the ground, much higher winds are typically experienced by a UAV at even “low” altitudes.
Below are average wind plots for Canada. Over 50% of Canadian airspace has average winds greater than 25 km/h at 80 m, a typical operating altitude for a small UAV.
click to enlarge
Flight Time
Most vendors of small UAVs advertise similar length of flight time. However, it is important to read fine print. To boost their numbers, some vendors’ advertised flight time is for the aerial vehicle without a payload (camera) and under ideal conditions (e.g. no wind, at 20°C). When a payload is attached the useful operational the flight time can be reduced by over 50%.
While the length of flight for small UAVs is still shorter than most organizations feel they need, when actually trying a UAV, many people are surprised by the amount of information that can be gathered in just 20 minutes. Often organizations incorrectly base their assumptions around how long it currently takes to get the information. With many systems, data is only stored on-board the craft and cannot be accessed until the vehicle lands - this can negate the value of long flight times, as the longer a vehicle is flying, the longer the delay to access the imagery.An additional solution, to delivering longer mission times or providing continuous surveillance is the use of multiple vehicles. Advanced UAV systems allow multiple vehicles to be in the air under the control of a single user, providing a persistent stare by having a 2nd aerial vehicle take over surveillance while the 1st vehicle returns for a new battery.
Safety
Safety is always a focus of any law enforcement organization. Safety of officers and civilians, as well as property must be considered for all equipment used. It is important the UAV system has been designed with safety as a priority, not added on after the fact.
Features that support safe operation can include:
- The ability of the system to know when the power source is running low, inform the pilot, and if necessary fly home.
- Reporting when wind speed is excessive and the vehicle should return to the ground or the ability to set user imposed max range fencing in which the vehicle is allowed to fly. This reduces the pressure the pilot may feel to fly when he/she is unsure of the safety of the conditions.
- Not permitting the vehicle to fly if any of the onboard systems had detected a fault.
- Intelligent response if communication is lost between the aerial vehicle and the operator.
Having safety built into the system allows the operator to focus on the job of collecting the information at the scene.
Cost
With any major equipment purchase, the purchase price is only a part of the real cost to the organization; others include training, re-training, skills practise, maintenance, repair and new features.
A simple touch screen interface requires orders of magnitude less training than an RC controller. The training cost saving resulting from selecting a system that is designed for ease-of-use versus an RC controlled system is over 75%. If equipment is not used continually it is imperative that the interface is easy to remember. If not, there will be lost opportunities as well as significant re- training and testing. In an emergency, pilots can feel a great deal of pressure to fly despite being out of practice or in situations beyond their skill level.
Maintenance costs need to be included in the decision process as these can have a significant impact on tight budgets. A modular system that has been design to eliminate the need for maintenance reduces the both the direct costs of doing the work and the indirect cost of not having the equipment available during the maintenance time.
Any system will at some time require repairs. For a uni-body designed system the whole unit is returned when repair work needs to be performed. Modular systems require that only the failure part need be returned for repair or replaced with a new part which can be kept in stock.
New features and payloads are always being developed by manufacturers. It is important to ensure a system purchased today will work with new features or payloads. Predicting the future of any product is difficult, but one of the keys to reducing your risk is to check to see that currently existing payloads are easily interchanged and make sure the system is designed to allow the user to upgrade without having to return the unit to the factory.
Single User Operation
Many systems are designed in a way that requires more than one operator. A system designed for single operator use gets the job done faster, more reliably and at a lower cost. It must providing the operator with all of the flight and payload controls, along with a display of the visual data being collected. A system can only be truly a single operator design when the system manages the vehicle’s flight, letting the user focus on where to fly, not how.
Network Ready
While a single UAV streaming images to the ground works well for standalone missions, the ability to distribute the information to a command center or other decision makers is what allows an organization to really get the most from the investment. Systems that do not provide this ability will be left behind when they could be most useful.
Quick Change
Most UAV systems offer multiple payload options, often cameras. Changing from one payload to another needs to be seamless to the operator. The requirements of an operation can change quickly and the equipment being used must be able to keep up. Ensure the system allows not only a quick physical change in all weather conditions, but also ensures the electronics and software recognizes the change automatically. Without the ability to quickly adapt to the needs of the operation, valuable time will be lost setting up the system after each change.
More than Pictures
There are two basic UAV designs on the market today; the first has a commercial camera attached to the bottom of an aerial platform; the second is a UAV system that has custom cameras integrated in the system. While the first type of system may allow for a choice of cameras, the only information provided is imagery. A system with an integrated camera allows for metadata to be tagged with the picture or video stream.
Geographical metadata allows images to be stitched together into larger picture of the area without having to give up any detail. More advanced systems can also use this information for immediate use in the navigation of the system, by providing current maps of the surroundings.
Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL)
UAVs are divided into two categories, Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) or Fixed Wing. Each performs different tasks. While fixed wing system can fly for longer distances and duration, they require space for take-off and landing and must keep moving, unable hover over a location. VTOL systems require limited space for take off and landing, some as little as 5 m2, while providing improved control of take off and landings. They can hover in place, providing constant surveillance of any location.
Portability
It is important to ensure the system packaging is portable and includes everything required to carry out a successful mission. If you can’t easily carry the equipment required to perform the required tasks, the UAV will be relegated to being used only for special operations. Look for systems designed to be carried in the back of any vehicle, that can be managed by a single operator, and with kits that contain everything needed to complete a successful operation.
Available Solutions
While there are many needs that must be met to make any small UAV ready for police work, there are very few systems on the market that meet all the requirements listed above - however, one system that does is the Aeryon Scout.
Operational Conditions
The Aeryon Scout has been designed to operate in all types of weather. From a bright sunny day through cold (-10°C) to hot (50°C), from calm winds to strong breeze (50km/hr) with the ability to handle gust up to Gale (80km/hr) the Scout will provide high quality aerial information.
Length of Flight Time
The Aeryon Scouts listed flight time of up to 25 minutes is measured with a camera payload attached. Changing the battery takes less than 10 seconds. Unlike most other systems, high resolution imagery and other on-board data can be accessed online while the vehicle is in flight.
To provide extended surveillance, the Scout system can manage more than one flyer allowing for persistent surveillance. In addition, the Scout system is provided with a battery charger that allows the user to charge 3 batteries simultaneously in the field from a variety of sources.
Safety
The Aeryon Scout provides multiple safety features, including simply returning home and landing safely when battery is low, keeping the vehicle within a specified distance of the operator, and to the detection of sever wind conditions and responding appropriately.
Cost
Training
Training is easy with the Aeryon Scout. With a touch screen interface, the operator simply directs the vehicle to the desired location and points the camera where needed, while the vehicle manages the difficult aspects of flying. In addition, a built in simulator allows personnel to learn to operate the system from the office as time permits.
Maintenance
To keep operations moving, if any part should be need to be repaired, simply snap in the spare and return the system to immediate operation. No tools are required in the field, enabling the system to be put into service within a few minutes of arriving at the scene.
Single User Operation
With the comprehensive touch screen interface and on-board system management software, the Aeryon scout is designed for a single user operation
Network Ready
The Aeryon Scout was designed so that it can be integrated into an existing network. The video data provided is digital throughout the system.
Quick Change
All payloads designed for the Aeryon Scout to be changed in operation, with the system automatically recognizing the payload attached and adjusting the system as needed. Changing from a daylight to thermal payload takes less than a minute and can be done in any weather.
More than Pictures
All photographs taken by the Aeryon Scout are geotagged, ensuring all information required for evidence processing is retained. In addition, the images can be stitched together to provide a large area image from several smaller ones.
VTOL
The Aeryon Scout needs an area of 5m2 around the aerial vehicle for take off and landing.
Portability
Designed to fit into two carrying cases that fit into any vehicle and are small enough to be carried on commercial airlines, the Aeryon Scout comes complete with everything need to provide coverage for the variety of missions that it may need to carry out.
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