On Thu, 6 Apr 2006 17:43:28 -0700, "Peter Duniho"
wrote in
::

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/04/06...ch_survei.html

Here's a recent article on this subject:


July 11, 2006 edition

It's a kite. It's a model airplane. It's ... the sheriff!
By Daniel B. Wood | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

LOS ANGELES – It looks like a model plane, and sounds nearly silent.
It costs $30,000, and could pay for itself in its first hour of use.
Law-enforcement officials in Los Angeles County, who police 10.5
million people - say it is the future of policing in America.

"It" is a drone. The three-feet-long, remote-controlled airplane with
tiny video cameras can fit in a four-inch-diameter tube - and thus in
a car trunk, or over the shoulder like a quiver of arrows.

The tiny drone will be able to provide law enforcement officers with a
bird's-eye view of just about anything. It's intended to find lost
hikers, skiers, surfers, children, elders, and more. It can also be
used in hostage situations and other violent standoffs in rural or
urban areas and to surveil fleeing crime suspects.

Privacy advocates worry that a drone could peer too far into private
lives because cameras could intrude on citizens through windows and
into backyards. Law officers say it is more cost-effective than a
helicopter.

"The potential savings of this are astronomical compared to the high
cost of owning, storing, and using the helicopters that we now use,"
says Commander Sid Heal of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
(LASD). Helicopters cost between $600 to $1,200 per hour to operate,
he says, not including the number of needed personnel: usually at
least three (one on the ground, two in a copter). Buying a helicopter
can cost up to $2 million.

"Not only that, helicopters are often unavailable altogether or too
slow to the scene to be helpful," says Mr. Heal.

Known as "SkySeers," the drones were designed by Octatron, a
subsidiary of Chang Industries, a defense contractor in southern
California. A prototype has been in development for seven years.

Users of a drone first unfold its wings from the 4-inch diameter tube,
then they grasp the drone's chassis from below like a child ready to
throw a paper airplane.

Once the drone is airborne (up to about 300 feet), users can direct it
to a chosen site via a small, accompanying computer, which has a small
monitor that can show what the drone's cameras are seeing. Using
precise coordinates, the drone can be directed to loop around a fixed
point, or survey point to point as directed by remote control of a
person on the ground.

Because of their portability and versatility, drones could become
indispensable tools for the sheriff's department activities after
testing resumes possibly within a couple weeks or September at the
latest, according to officials.

The LASD would be the first law-enforcement agency in the US to employ
drones, and depending how much value they end up providing relative to
the cost, one drone could be available at each of the 20 sheriff's
stations.

After the LASD demonstrated use of the drone in late June, the new
technology raised the ire of privacy-rights activists.

"What concerns us is that privacy is fundamentally a right to be let
alone and go about your business and daily life without having the
government looking over your shoulders," says Kurt Opsahl, staff
attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit
organization, which aims to protect people's digital rights. "It is as
disturbing if they are looking over your shoulder with a drone flying
overhead as much as over your shoulder literally," he says.

But others disagree. "While there may be a potential threat to privacy
with the ... new drone, if the device is used for the reasons the
sheriffs have stated, I don't think there is a need for any attempts
to ban its use," says Robert Pugsley, a law professor at Southwestern
Law School, Los Angeles.

For their part, officials at the LASD say the cameras are not
currently powerful enough to identify the gender of a person on the
ground - or see clearly into a bedroom.

"This is intended for search and rescue, quick deployment during a
fast-moving fire, or even a post-Katrina search operation," says Sam
de la Torre, the SkySeer's developer. He notes that anything the
SkySeer can see is permitted under current federal and state laws
regarding helicopter surveillance. "We are not going to be looking in
back windows and invading privacy. We are going to be trying to save
lives," he says.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires the LASD and Octatron* to
submit papers for approval so that SkySeer - now just a prototype -
can be further tested across Los Angeles County. LASD officials say
the approval is a small hurdle and should happen within weeks.

As close as 20 feet, the LASD drone prototype sounds about as loud as
a mosquito buzzing in the ear. Farther than 20 feet, the drone is
completely undetectable.

It moves at about 30 miles an hour, and its battery lasts 75 minutes.
But a battery can be changed in five minutes, and on-the-ground
recharging can keep the drones airborne indefinitely.

The size, weight, and cost of these new drones may make them more
ubiquitous than the larger drones, which the US border patrol in
Tucson, Ariz., began using in September to target illegal immigrants.
The large UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle) called the Predator B reach
speeds of 253 miles per hour, can hover between 15,000 and 20,000
feet, and cost $14 million each.


* http://www.octatron.com/Products/SKS.html

Description:

The SkySeerTM is a low cost, autonomous reconnaissance UAV that can
be easily carried without supporting vehicles.

Features:
Combining a small footprint and autonomous flight, SkySeerTM is the
preferred UAV for short-range reconnaissance and monitoring
operations. (Patent pending on SkySeerTM).

Aircraft:
Very low platform cost
Light and small, easily carried by one person
Quiet yet powerful electric motor
GPS-guided autonomous flight, take-off, and landing
Remote-controlled pan/tilt camera head
Day and night operation, with optional thermal camera
Color or high resolution b/w camera
Lightweight groundstation

Ground station:
USB, FireWire and Card Reader
User-friendly ground station control software
10/100 Ethernet
Daylight readable LCD touchscreen
Integrated antennas
Analog video output
Dual UAV battery charger
UAV pan/tilt joystick

Specifications:

Aircraft:
Wingspan 6.5ft (1.98m)
Total weight 3.125 lbs (1.42kg)
Endurance 45-60 minutes at cruise speed
Cruise Speed 23 mph (37 kph)
Range 2 mi (3.2km) (extensible via Octatron, Inc.) NetWeaverTM
Pan/Tilt 160° pan / 90° tilt

Ground station:
Display Bright, daylight readable LCD touchscreen (750+nits)
Total weight 20 lbs
Typical power consumption 60W (excluding battery chargers)
Input voltage 12-30 VDC (Automotive power compatible)
Battery charging station Charges two UAV battery packs simultaneously
(Packs charge to 80% in 2 hours)
Analog video output Output realtime and recorded UAV video to a
standard monitor
Digital video Store up to 20 hours of high quality MPEG-2 video
Copy recorded video to DVD or Flash media
USB and FireWire (IEEE1394) interface
JPEG snapshots
Real-time flight video and telemetry See and record what the UAV sees
in real-time
Video head Real-time joystick control of UAV pan/tilt camera head
Autonomous flight Point and click mission planning via GPS waypoints.
Automatic take-off and landing

KCAL( Video Report:


------------------------------------

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