EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Drone technology is changing battlefield tactics in Eastern Europe. In one Arizona county, a custom-made police drone could become a lifesaver or a surrogate lawman in rugged terrain often used by migrants and smugglers.
Cochise County wants to use drones in support of sheriff’s deputies called to assist in mountain rescues and those who find themselves chasing lawbreakers along a busy border smuggling corridor.
But most commercial drones have limited battery life and can only fly so high on a jurisdiction that includes Miller Peak (9,470 feet) in the Huachuca Mountains or Chiricahua Peak (9,795 feet) in the nearby Chiricahua Mountains.
That’s where the flying machines built by Cameron Chell’s Draganfly Inc. come in.
“We were aware of Cochise County because they do such groundbreaking border management work,” said Chell, Draganfly cofounder and CEO. “As we had the opportunity to meet with Cochise County I think there was immediately a ‘bromance’ that emerged for the amount of border management work that we have done in the past, the expertise and our ability to listen and learn from them.”
The Mark Dannels-led Cochise County Sheriff’s Office has deployed a network of surveillance cameras and an artificial intelligence driven operations center. But the agency is looking for a better eye in the sky to address emergencies as they happen and prevent things from getting out of hand rather than just reacting after the fact.
“The challenges are extreme, varying temperatures, varying altitudes, and incredibly long border to manage and limited budget,” Chell said in an exclusive interview with Border Report. “They get good info on folks that come across the border but they can’t respond quickly because sometimes they’re hours away.”
The solution that Draganfly proposed and Cochise County is trying consists of a 9-foot-long hybrid drone with two combustion engines in addition to the traditional battery power on which such craft typically fly . The drone can stay up in the air for seven hours and travel at 75 miles per hour.
Such power will allow for the delivery of water and emergency supplies to hikers stranded on the mountain or exhausted migrants abandoned by smugglers. If deputies need delivery of equipment such as radios or maybe ropes, the Draganfly drone might deliver that, too.
With the right communications equipment, the drones also can “hold people in place.”
“If you have situation where you’re trying to stop somebody from crossing or you’re trying to hold them in place until somebody can get there, or there’s an emergency situation and they need equipment […] The possibilities for it to come in to help are immense. It is a great force multiplier,” Chell said of the drones headed to Arizona this fall.
Earlier, Cochise County officials expressed excitement about the pilot drone program slated for November.
Draganfly is a publicly traded company contracted by U.S. military and defense contractors primarily for surveillance and reconnaissance operations.
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