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Public service agencies across the globe are finding creative ways to use UAV’s to help in medical emergencies, search and rescue, and criminal apprehension. Drone technology takes the advantages of the helicopter and increases use cases based on the obvious cost effectiveness, ability to get in the air sooner, less possibility of loss of flight crews, and ease of operation and landing. Payload capacities and airborne operational times are increasing regularly.
‘Just in time’ payloads of medical equipment, or resupply has already proven itself in developed countries, but the greatest impact may be seen in developing countries. Imagine areas that cannot be serviced by helicopter EMS due to logistical and cost constraints that could benefit from life-saving cardiac and other medical therapies. Drones have been used to deliver blood products in Rwanda. Many of these countries lose patients due to highly poisonous reptiles because the expensive anti-venoms cannot be cost effectively maintained across rural areas. This is often a small payload, so more weight can be devoted to operational batteries giving drones more flight time and longer ranges. The flight distances can be further extended by providing chargers for the small clinics that would provide the patient care, or including on-board chargers. The use of pre-entered GPS coordinates to locate the clinic in question, then make the ‘homing’ trip back to base is possible based on the existing global GPS satellite system.
This concept would be easier to create in rural areas across the US. In addition to visual recon and distribution of medical supplies, UAV’s have already found other uses in the fire service. In California and Arizona, drones are used to deploy ‘dragon eggs’ which contain an accelerant are used for controlled burns to prevent and control large brush fires. UAV’s can cover distances in minutes that often take ground-based vehicles hours to traverse.
One of the things that has assisted in the use of drones in the United States is the Public Safety Tactical Beyond Visual Line of Sight (TBVLOS) waiver the Federal Aviation Administration unveiled in August of 2020. This waiver to 14 CFR 91.113(b) allows holders of the exemption to fly drones to distances beyond visual sight and on the other side of a buildings and similar situations. This allows for rescue searches of large areas of devastation, forest, etc., as well as flight over hazmat scenes and large fires for a much safer form of recon of those scenes, potentially saving firefighter lives. Another lifesaving effort increases police officer safety dealing with aggressive but evasive criminals, SWAT operations, and explosive environments.
Several states have also passed legislation regarding and supporting the use of drones in these capacities. The State of North Dakota was the first state to allow law enforcement to use drones as a delivery platform for non-lethal force. Imagine an actor that has EMS and law enforcement pinned down with rifle fire when a super quiet drone approaches from an unseen perspective and delivers a brief but effective electrical charge that renders the subject incapable of firing for long enough to be safely subdued.
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