PRXT & CYDF Revolutionize the UAV industry!!
Flying spy aids police
Palm Bay first agency in state to use drone
BY J.D. GALLOP
FLORIDA TODAY
Sat Jan 20, 2007
PALM BAY - It is used to hunt the enemy above the urban battlefields of Iraq, but soon a version of the unmanned aircraft -- minus the military weaponry -- will cast an unblinking eye on criminals and even local traffic.
The high-tech, lightweight aircraft could arrive next month at the Palm Bay Police Department, making the department the first municipal law enforcement agency in Florida to use a drone, according to the makers of the plane and Palm Bay police.
"This is the future," said Palm Bay Police Chief William Berger after recently watching a demonstration of the craft near City Hall.
Instead of relying solely on the Brevard County Sheriff's Office helicopter, Berger envisions this 21st-century technology being used to find fleeing suspects or to search for missing people in the sprawling, 100-square-mile city.
The onboard cameras also will give Palm Bay Fire-Rescue a bird's-eye view of a spreading brush fire or help officers sort out major traffic congestion, he said.
"We can get this small model plane up in the air and be able to see what's happening, whether we're looking for a missing child or doing surveillance on a drug house," Berger said.
Palm Bay police are using $30,000 in forfeiture money -- funds generated from the seized assets of drug dealers -- to purchase the Cyberbug from CyberDefense Systems, a St. Petersburg-based company.
The company began marketing the remote-controlled mini-aircraft to military and law enforcement agencies in 2004.
It flies below 400 feet, a cap set by the Federal Aviation Administration to keep model planes out of air traffic, said James Alman, CyberDefense's vice-president of engineering. The police department would still need to get final FAA approval to fly the plane, according to agency spokeswoman Alison Duquette.
So far, a police department in North Carolina is the only other law enforcement agency using a Cyberbug model, although the craft has been sold to the U.S. Forestry Service. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is experimenting with SkySeer, a different brand of unmanned aircraft, and is awaiting FAA clearance to fly in one of the nation's densest air spaces.
"It doesn't just replace a helicopter, but you can fly it at low altitude without any ambient noise," said Cmdr. Sid Heal, who oversees the technology exploration project at the L.A. department. "With a helicopter you have fuel, maintenance, pilots . . . this, you can pull out of the trunk."
Auto pilot
Unmanned drones -- which can go up to 20,000 feet -- have been used by the U.S. military and other nations like Israel for years.
In battlefronts, the military rapidly deploy the camera-mounted aircraft to track enemy positions or for other intelligence-gathering missions to aid ground troops.
The gray-toned civilian Cyberbug, which weighs 8 pounds and is fitted with kite-like wings, comes only with color and night-vision cameras that can spin 360 degrees. The planes are also equipped with GPS, making it possible to "tag" an area once a missing child or lost Alzheimer's patient is found.
The plane fits into a backpack and can be airborne within minutes, CyberDefense officials said. It can stay aloft for about an hour, cruising at 25 mph and traveling a distance of about 6.2 miles, according to the company.
"We wanted to develop a low-cost, very dependable unmanned aerial vehicle to give the military and law enforcement an additional tool to better protect themselves and the public," said Billy Robinson, the CEO of CyberDefense. "This was something that was once science fiction but it's now real life."
From a ground control station -- usually a specialized laptop -- the aircraft can be guided with a preprogrammed flight pattern.
