Drones did their job at one of the biggest events the region has ever witnessed – the Expo 2020 UAE; an event that saw people practically from every corner of the globe. And when you have delegates, dignitaries, and leaders of nations, ensuring their safety and the general public at large is paramount. That’s when the authorities turned to drone solutions. Robust drones were employed at the Expo 2020 that could detect 92 types of incidents, like fires, traffic problems, and intruders, just to name some. These drones have reportedly cut down the police response time to crime, traffic, and emergency situations by two-thirds.
“Police drones have responded to hundreds of minor incidents at Expo, have undertaken more than two thousand patrolling missions to date and have completed more than 1,000 operational hours,” said Capt Mohamad Al Muhairi, head of the Unmanned Aerial Systems Centre at Dubai Police.
The Ajman Police force has been deploying robust drone solutions to monitor the overall traffic situations in the Emirates – from monitoring accidents and road congestion to arresting violators of traffic rules. Drones allow the concerned authorities to capture clear images of the number plates of vehicles even 1,000 metres away. Captain Rashid Al Attar, Operations Director, Traffic and Patrols Department, Ajman Police, stated that since its inception in the previous year, the Air Support Centre has already carried out 20 security and aerial reconnaissance missions, as well as 299 traffic missions. Drones are always mission-ready and can also fly a distance of more than 15 kilometres – Attar continued.
The Sharjah Police have successfully utilised drones to monitor COVID-19 lockdown violations, investigate crime scenes and road accidents, search for missing persons, track illegal activities, secure sensitive areas, patrol hazardous industrial sites, manage mob violence, provide crowd surveillance during public events and much more.
But here’s something more intriguing: the Sharjah Police Force has been tracking wanted criminals using drones equipped with facial recognition technology. As a first step, the AI network is fed with the photographs of the criminals. Now, facial recognition drones just fly around and scan crowded public areas. When a drone suspects it has spotted a target, it then captures the suspect’s images from multiple angles – (possibly flying lower and adjusting the gimbal for enhanced visibility). The photos are then scanned by machine learning models for immediate analysis. If any matches are found, the ground unit of the police force makes the arrest.
The Dubai Police successfully utilised the capability of drones to ensure complete compliance of the Emirates with the decisions made by the government, especially during the Covid Crisis. They employed drones to communicate crucial messages, such as avoiding public locations and quitting beaches, as a preventative measure to prevent the virus from spreading. All thanks to drones that can communicate with loudspeakers! Drones equipped with loudspeakers will help you disseminate your messages from heights, with text-to-speech support and looping. This, in turn, escalates the efficiency of their operations.
Similarly, Colonel Saeed Al Madhani, Director of the Dubai Ports Police Station, stated that the Ports Police Station does drone patrols in its daily operations in collaboration with the Dubai Police Drone Centre.
The Ras Al Khaimah Police has deployed camera-equipped drones to enhance security in the emirate. The lightweight, compact, and powerful drones in the market can be easily operated remotely during an emergency or even for routine mapping flights. They can work around the clock with tremendous efficiency, capturing photographs and videos from great distances, and live-streaming them to senior authorities in the central control centre, allowing them to make better-informed decisions faster.
