Canberra Police want to use UAS for vehicle surveillance.

By Gary Mortimer

Police have suggested that Canberra’s new point-to-point speed cameras be linked to unmanned aerial surveillance drones and used to track vehicles of interest to authorities.

The first of the cameras, which use automated number plate recognition technology to calculate a car’s average speed and whether it is within the legal limit, are due to be switched on by the end of the year.

But minutes of a Government point-to-point steering committee meeting held in June last year show that police recommended a broader range of uses for the cameras.

According to the minutes, which were issued to the Opposition under the Freedom of Information Act, a senior police officer said the cameras could be used for other purposes.

”He noted that the use of P2P ANPR cameras to detect unregistered, stolen and other vehicles of interest would provide ongoing and longer term benefits for the project,” the minutes said.

The officer also advised that, ”a specific benefit would derive if the P2P cameras were linked to UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] which could track vehicles of interest.”

–

Of course this is not the first Police force in the world that has investigated the use of UAS, in America there have already been a couple of false starts with regulation holding implementation back. Perhaps the rumours of a vendor led push for Emergency Services use to come into force next June means that’s about to change. If what we hear is true the AMA and small business user has been left out of the party.

In the UK Merseyside famously heralded an arrest by UAS only to have the Civil Aviation Authority rap them over the knuckles for not being correctly licenced whilst making that arrest.

The disconnect between sUAS ability and sales patter seems to still be alive and well. Unless the Canberra Police are buying a fleet of RQ-7 or Predators how can any small system be a useful enough.

Cameras on poles operating 24/7 would seem a more appropriate technology.

For quick and simple aerial images of accident sites or missing person searches that’s a different matter.