146 Just ordinAry robots
certainly caveats. Using a road map for the future, Sharkey is trying
to visualize the implications of current developments in the eld of
police robots. e road map outlined by Sharkey begins in the pres-
ent and ends in the year 2084—a clear reference to Orwell’s 1984.
Sharkey shows that currently, robots may be used for mobile surveil-
lance and detection of explosives. In 2084, there may be a humanoid
police robot walking down the street that is connected to a network
of cameras, databases, and other robots, which assists in road safety,
riot control, crowd control, locating missing persons, or interrogating
dangerous suspects. According to Sharkey, in the future robots will
take over all kinds of police tasks and they will increasingly perform
these tasks more independently.
Police robots today resemble remote-controlled toy vehicles rather
than police ocers, as even opening a door can already present an
insurmountable obstacle.
While the “Robocop” will remain to be science ction for a long
time, robots are already being used by the police for dangerous, dull,
and dirty police work. Robots can perform boring work or danger-
ous jobs without loss of concentration and can reach places that are
otherwise dicult to access by a human or another technical tool.
In Great Britain, robots have been used since the Irish Republican
Army (IRA) era for removing bombs, and since the late 1980s the
remotely controlled so-called V-A1 robots have been used to inspect
possible hazardous situations in the State of Virginia (United States).*
ese V-A1 robots are equipped with cameras, chemical detection
equipment, and a mechanical arm to grab objects. ey enable agent-
operators to assess dangerous situations from a distance without run-
ning risks themselves.
Although there are some land-based police robots, we see an
increasing use of drones by law enforcement agencies. is is mainly
due to the huge investments and developments in military drone tech-
nology (see Chapter 6), from which law enforcement agencies benet.
Furthermore, law enforcement agencies expect a great deal of good to
come from robots for surveillance and reconnaissance purposes, and
drones may ideally serve these purposes. In this section, we will dis-
cuss law enforcement drones, mainly those used by the police.
*
http://ww2.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/230806.
147drones in the City
4.3.2 Tasks of Police Drones
Police drones have mainly been developed for surveillance and recon-
naissance purposes, tasks using cameras and sensors for observation
and communication with the environment. For example, in 2009 a
mini helicopter drone was purchased for the Dutch police’s task force
for organized hemp growers. e drone has odor-detection equip-
ment and the ability to use video so it can trace hemp elds from the
air. e police have already uncovered a cannabis factory during the
rst test ight of the mini helicopter. Seven suspects were arrested
and several kilos of hemp were intercepted.*
In 2014, Belize, a country on the eastern coast of Central America,
deployed drones in the ght against illegal shing.
†
Illegal shing, with
worldwide industry losses worth U.S. $23 billion, represents a major
global problem because it can also damage fragile maritime ecosystems.
Belize is one of the countries hardest hit by illegal shing. It was so
rampant that in March 2014, that the European Union suspended all
seafood imports from Belize (as well as from Cambodia and Guinea),
stating that Belize had not acted forcefully enough to prevent illegal
shing. e xed-wing drones, the so-called Skywalkers, used against
illegal shing can y for over an hour, have a range of 50kilometers
(or 30 miles), and are capable of taking high-denition photos and
videos. ey will be used to patrol areas that are dicult to reach, such
as coastal mangrove forests, at a fraction of the cost of a conventional,
manned aircraft. Once the illegal activity is located, authorities can
dispatch a vessel and perform a seagoing search much more eciently.
In 2009, the National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR)—the indepen-
dent knowledge enterprise on aerospace in the Netherlands—wrote a
report for the National Police Agency on their assistance in the opera-
tional testing and evaluation of a number of market-available, remote-
controlled reconnaissance aircraft (Ladiges & Van Stijl, 2009). On the
basis of 11 scenarios, the report provides a picture of the type of tasks
for which law enforcement agencies may use drones and what results
may be achieved. e wide range of scenarios includes the search for
*
http://www.dutchdailynews.com/dutch-police-hunt-cannabis-hemp-growers-
with-canna-chopper/.
†
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140718-drones-illegal-shing-
pirate-belize-ocean/.
148 Just ordinAry robots
a missing person or a kidnapped daughter of a wealthy family in a
nature reserve, monitoring a burning ship in a harbor when there is
a threat of a massive explosion, recognizing marijuana containers at
an industrial site and ensuring security at a gathering of international
VIPs (see Box 4.1 for an example). Based on these scenarios, it can be
determined which requirements the drone must meet to adequately
fulll these types of operations (see Box 4.2).
4.3.3 Examples of Police Drones
Numerous types of drones are developed for law enforcement. Most of
these drones t easily into a police car and can be assembled and ready
for ight in less than 5minutes to provide a rapidly deployable eye in
the sky, transmitting live video directly to the operator at a fraction of
the cost of a manned aircraft. We will give three examples to provide
an idea of the breadth and adaptability of police drone technology.
e Qube is a drone with four rotor blades, is 90centimeters (or 3feet)
long, and weighs 2.5kilograms (or 5.5 pounds).* is drone is at the fore-
front of the use of drone technology by police forces in the United States.
It can swoop back and forth, has hover-and-stare capability, and uses
high-resolution color and thermal cameras. e Qube’s ight endurance
time is 40minutes with payload. e range (1kilometer, or 0.6 mile, line
of sight) and operational altitude (30–150 meters, or 100–500 feet) are
restricted by the FAA.
e Grand Forks Police Department in North Dakota, for example,
uses this drone. Since 2013, the drone has own 11 active missions.
†
ese missions involve taking digital photos over a crime or trac acci-
dent that might provide detectives with useful intelligence from an aer-
ial perspective, monitoring the annual threat of ooding from the Red
River and searching for people. In one mission, a suspected drunk driver
ran away into a eld covered in corn stalks rising more than 2 meters
(or 7 feet) high that made visibility on the ground impossible. With the
help of the Qube’s thermal-imaging device, which can detect any live
presence through body heat, the suspect was found in 3minutes.
‡
*
http://www.avinc.com/uas/small_uas/qube.
†
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/01/drones-police-force-crime-uavs-
north-dakota.
‡
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/police-used-a-drone-to-chase-down-and-arrest-
four-dui-suspects-in-a-corneld.
149drones in the City
BOX 4.2 SCENARIO 9: EXPLORATION
IN URBAN AREAS
Case Scenario
An illegal arms factory is probably located at industrial estate
X. e building has a courtyard and many people walk in and
out of the building. Police want a daylight raid, but rst want to
know what the exact situation is.
Scenario Setting
Industrial estate, remote, many major roads
Assignment scenario
Is this plant in fact an illegal weapons factory?
What happens in the courtyard?
How many people are in the building?
Where are all the entrances and unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) requirements
e following operational UAV requirements are derived from
the previous scenario description:
a. It can observe a permanent building for a long time
(>1hour) and all its access points, continuously monitoring
all objects (people, vehicles) approaching from any direc-
tion and those present in the courtyard can also be seen.
b. e ability by observation to determine how many
people are hiding in and around the area observed, using
a UAV.
c. Recognizing and recording certain objects (weapons) in
the area observed.
d. e ability to observe the area unnoticed by means
of a UAV.
Source: Ladiges, R., & Van Stijl, M.C., OT&E scenario’s
voor KLPD UAS, NLR-CR-2009-598, Nationaal
Lucht-en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium, Amsterdam, the
Netherlands, 2009.
150 Just ordinAry robots
A more advanced drone is the drone helicopter ShadowHawk
(see Figure 4.7), which has a rotor span of almost 2 meters (or 7 feet) and
weighs 16kilograms (or 35 pounds).* e drone has a range of 24kilome-
ters and can y at speeds of up to 89km/h (or 55 mph). e ShadowHawk
can maintain aerial surveillance of an area (i.e., a house, vehicle, person,
etc.) at more than 200 meters (or 650 feet) without being heard or seen,
unlike a full-sized aircraft. e Montgomery County Sheri’s Oce
(MCSO) in Texas, for example, uses this drone for emergency manage-
ment, missing person recovery, and watching over operations, for exam-
ple, lming above Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team activities.
†
In April 2014, the drone of the MCSO, which cost U.S. $250,000, suf-
fered a malfunction and crashed during an exercise over Lake Conroe.
e Nano Hummingbird (see Figure 4.8) is a pocket-sized drone
with a wingspan of 16.5centimeters (or 6.5 inches) and a weight
of 19grams (or 0.67 ounce) that is equipped with a video camera
for surveillance and reconnaissance purposes.
‡
e drone has been
developed by AeroVironment under a Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA)-sponsored research contract to develop a
new class of air vehicle systems capable of indoor and outdoor opera-
tion. e drone is able to y at speeds of up to 18km/h (or 11 mph),
*
http://vanguarddefense.com/productsservices/uavs/.
†
http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/woodlands/article/250K-police-drone-
crashes-into-Lake-Conroe-5435343.php.
‡
http://www.avinc.com/nano.
Figure 4.7 The ShadowHawk. (Photo courtesy of Vanguard Defense Industries.)
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