Drones as First Responders

When I was eight my older brother and his friends decided to have a movie night at our house. Normally when my brother had his friends over, he’d sit on my head, break wind, then kick me out of the room. But this time, he invited me to stick around. I was shocked. Then I realized he had invited girls over and he needed to come across like the loving brother-type. You can’t be cutting cheese on eight-year olds if you wanna impress the ladies. Not on the first date at least.

To further show his softer side, my brother presented the movie for the evening, “Dirty Harry and the Dead Pool.” The ladies swooned. Everyone got ready to cuddle.

This was my first Dirty Harry film. I was eight after all. Better late than never, I suppose. To this day, there are a couple things that stand out. The first is Liam Neeson and his amazing mullet. The second is the RC cars that chased everyone around and blew them up.

Liam Neeson is neat and all, but the idea of driving an exploding RC car around the streets of San Fransisco had to be one of the coolest things I had ever seen. So, when I grew up and found myself working with drones and robots with Special Operations, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I immediately chose an RC basher called a Traxxas Xmaxx. Word in the RC market has it that the extreme nature of your car is measured in the number of X’s in your title. I was sure I had picked a winner.

I stripped the top off the vehicle, added a long-range MANET radio, a first person video camera, and a “mini-more”. A mini-more is a minature Claymore. What’s a Claymore you ask? Oh, it’s an anti-personnel mine loaded with nearly 400 tungsten cubes propelled by C-4 explosives.

As much as I’d like you to believe the mini-more was “live” I have to admit it wasn’t. It was definitely inert. But the engineers at my experimentation events didn’t know that. And I don’t care who you are, an RC car traveling over 50 miles per hour armed with an anti-personnel mine is a horrifying. Almost as horrifying as the trigger-happy nerd cackling on the roof wearing the FPV goggles. My engineer buddies definitely thought so.

I use this as an example of the versatility of modern robots. As we’ve seen with air and ground robots in Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Israel, you name it, small commercial drones offer anyone the ability to conduct remote operations previously unseen anywhere other than in the military.

Mounting sensors or weapons on a robot is usually referred to as adding a “payload.” On military aircraft payloads are assumed to be missiles or bombs. Modern technology has changed that. A payload could be an infrared camera, a software defined radio, or a mini-more like the one I strapped to the Traxxas.

Back in the day, countries like the Soviet Union and North Korea trained working dogs to carry explosives and dive under tanks as anti-armor weapons. Many of times, these tactics failed, as the tanks these dogs were trained on weren’t moving, or their engines weren’t on. Confused, the dogs would turn around and kill their handlers instead. Fortunately drones, unlike those unfortunate dogs in the past, aren’t alive. They also offer the ability for warfighters to be extremely accurate at long ranges. However, the onboard sensing and cognition of these drones are normally quite limited so their impact domestically has focused on their use as a camera in the sky.

Recently, though, an exciting event took place. An American company called Skydio announced their new enterprise drone: the X10. I sat through the silicon valley Apple-esque release of the X10 and, I’m not gonna lie, I got a bit misty. Why? Well, I’ve been working with drones for a really long time. I had been demanding properly integrated sensors, payloads, and autopilots with appropriate radios to create a cohesive solution to meet enterprise and military needs. The X10 feels like we’re finally getting there. And nowhere does this seem more relevant than in a concept called “DFR” or “Drones as First Responders.”

I have long been a proponent of using drones to mitigate risk. A drone allows individuals to gain situational awareness and the critical context necessary to make safe, objective decisions. When the death of Breonna Taylor filled the news I kept thinking about how foolish policy could have been mitigated by placing a small drone between law enforcement and civilians. By using unarmed autonomous drones to enter uncleared or unsafe spaces, you are putting the drone at risk, not people. And even though the example of the Traxxas with the mini-more seems like evidence to the contrary, I’ve always been a believer that technology in conflict can decrease collateral damage, increase efficiency, and save lives.

The Skydio X10 is one of example of powerful AI that offers the ability for two-way communication via speakers, long duration flight, infrared and electro-optical camera solutions, collision avoidance, and 5G communications. These are all things I was screaming for when I helped develop these systems over the past decade. Another great example is the Shield AI Nova which is being used overseas right now to search uncleared spaces like the underground tunnels in Gaza to keep warfighters and civilians safe. And now, with the Skydio X10, there are even more options to help the masses.

Once the tactics, techniques, and procedures for how to use these drones proliferate, the ability to mitigate risk between first responders and civilians will expand dramatically. The best part: these drones are American made. The other best part: no one had to break wind on an eight year old to get there.

Dirty Harry would be pleased.