For about the cost of a
squad car, a deputy sheriff in Mesa County, Colorado, can track criminal
suspects, picture an arson scene or search for lost hikers, all with the ease
of tossing a toy glider into the air.
The sprawling county on the
Utah line uses two remote-controlled drone aircraft, similar to those deployed
against Afghanistan’s Taliban, to cover 3,300 square miles (8,600 square
kilometers) of mountainous terrain. Remotely operated technology honed in the
war on terror is letting Mesa County and state and local governments across the
U.S. work faster and cheaper.
“We save a significant
amount of time,” said Ben Miller, 34, who oversees the Mesa County Sheriff’s
Office’s two drones from Grand Junction. “It provides a huge resource savings.”
About 20 state and local
governments and 24 universities around the nation are authorized to fly
remotely piloted drones, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Those figures are expected to rise in coming years as the agency develops rules
and standards to safely integrate them into airspace shared with planes,
according to industry and FAA officials.
From search and rescue to
monitoring water supplies, roads, bridges and forest fires, applications run
the gamut, Ben Gielow, general counsel at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle
Systems International in Arlington, Virginia, said by telephone.
Use Picking Up
“They’re going to be used
very aggressively in the future,” said Mary Scott Nabers, president and chief
executive officer of Strategic Partnerships Inc., an Austin, Texas, industry
consultant. “The federal government has allocated billions for these, and state
and local governments will follow.”
Annual spending on unmanned
aerial vehicles, or UAVs, worldwide will almost double during the next decade
to $11.4 billion, according to an April report by the Teal Group Corp., a
defense-industry consulting firm based in Fairfax, Virginia. It didn’t estimate
how much of that will come from non-military buyers. Some drones are as small
as radio-controlled model airplanes and cost less than those used in warfare.
“Use in the U.S. will
clearly be a growth area,” Philip Finnegan, Teal Group’s director of corporate
analysis and an author of the report, said by telephone. “Governments that in
the past couldn’t afford helicopters can now afford UAVs.”
Privacy Concerns
Low-cost tools that make it
easier for governments to monitor their territory by air have raised privacy
questions, said Amie Stepanovich, national security counsel with the Electronic
Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit group in Washington that monitors
technology and civil liberties.
“Governments have been
using aircraft for a long time, but if it’s cheaper and easier, it becomes more
invasive,”Stepanovich said by telephone. “There are obvious benefits to drones,
but if you buy a drone to monitor fires and then start using it to monitor
individuals, we think there needs to be protection.”
Mesa County’s Miller
dismissed such concerns, saying in a telephone interview that using the
aircraft to spy on residents isn’t planned. To search private property, the
sheriff’s office would need a warrant, he said.
“We’re not going to be
looking in peoples’ backyards, because we don’t care what’s going on there,”
Miller said.
Imaging Roles
The county runs a drone
helicopter, a DraganFlyer X6 made by Draganfly Innovations Inc. in Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan, and a fixed-winged Falcon-UAV made near Denver, Miller said. Both
can be transported in a vehicle. The hand-launched Falcon flies for as much as
an hour while the 36-inch-wide DraganFlyer takes off vertically and runs for 15
minutes. The office uses both to make pictures, including three-dimensional and
infrared images.
The drones cost $3.36 an
hour to operate, which compares to $250 to $600 an hour for a manned aircraft,
Miller said. The drones cost $30,000 to $50,000 each to buy, about the price of
a squad car, he said.
The department, which has
been flying drones for two years, has used them to help fire investigators
study an arson scene, to search for hikers lost near McInnis Canyons and to
look for a suicidal resident who had run off into the wilderness.
“It’s a tool in the
toolbox,” Miller said. “The bird’s-eye view is huge.”
Not all government agencies
have been happy with the technology or the FAA’s conditions for using it,
however.
The Texas Department of
Public Safety, which began a drone program in 2008 to enhance the security of
officers confronting potentially dangerous situations, discontinued the effort
in 2010, Tom Vinger, a spokesman in Austin, said by e-mail.
Abandoned Effort
The step was taken “as a
result of concerns surrounding the complicated Federal Aviation Administration
restrictions, battery life of the device, maintenance costs and deficient video
quality,” Vinger said.
Startup companies see a
growing market for less-expensive drones made for civilian uses, Teal’s
Finnegan said. Building the aircraft without the burdens of military
specifications can drive down the costs for government and commercial buyers.
Chris Miser, 35, began
Falcon-UAV LLC, which made the Falcon used by Mesa County, after working on
drones as a U.S. Air Force captain. He adapted the technology for non-military
uses and cut the costs of making the planes.
“Law enforcement has been
unaware that it can adopt the technology,” Miser said by telephone. “This is
going to be the next thing for them to put to use.”
Possible applications for
state and local governments extend beyond law enforcement, said Ryan Zinke, 50,
a retired U.S. Navy SEAL and now a Republican state senator from Whitefish,
Montana. Drones can be used to monitor forest fires or inspect water resources
or other assets, said Zinke, who said he saw the potential while still in
military service.
“It’s much more
cost-effective than a helicopter,” Zinke said. He directs Montana State
University Northern’s Center for Remote Integration in Havre, which is
developing drone technology for government and business uses.