Houston-based drone startup Paladin has spent the last three years living with first responders to build an autonomous system that runs itself, so that emergency personnel can focus on saving lives. Now, the company says it’s ready to unveil the system publicly and provide instant situational awareness to even more first responders across the United States.
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It’s difficult to imagine the scale of the tragedy caused by torrential rains and flooding in Germany, Belgium, and elsewhere. But drones can help give us — and, more importantly, First Responders — a bigger picture. And one drone video shows a massive sinkhole in Germany.
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Rescues by drone aren’t new. But they’re important. And, as first responders continue to adopt drones as a key part of their tool kit, these stories are becoming more frequent. This one, in Wales, features some video of the operation.
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Unfortunately, it’s wildfire season again in western Canada and parts of the US. Even more unfortunately, a drone has already gotten in the way at an active fire where crewed aircraft are deployed.
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Nearly half of the people who drown in the Great Lakes every year drown in Lake Michigan. So now, one city in West Michigan is adding a specialized drone to its water rescue tools arsenal. Not only will this drone help South Haven Area Emergency Services (SHAES) responders to locate distressed swimmers, but it will also drop a floatation device to the swimmer in danger, reaching them about three minutes faster than a lifeguard.
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A new, device-agnostic live-streaming platform has been released, with drone operators one of its target markets. The concept? To create a secure live stream from the air that can be privately shared.
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We’ve seen drones used to rescue people. We’ve seen drones used to track suspects. But we have never, ever seen something like this. And, odds are, neither have you.
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We stumbled across some new software the other day. It intrigued us so much we got in touch with the company to learn more. And we see a real use for First Responders.
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Another search for a missing person has ended with a positive result, thanks to the use of a drone equipped with a thermal camera. You couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.
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Having a Skydio drone in your toolkit can offer police a tactical advantage, says an officer who uses the product. In particular, the drone can get up close in tight areas that would prove very difficult for other UAVs.
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Romeo Durscher, who for years was the public safety face of DJI, has been hired by Auterion. The company is an open-source drone software platform, and Durscher will be the new vice-president of public safety. He brings a wealth of experience to the company, as well as an outstanding reputation amongst First Responders.
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Public safety drone consultancy Skyfire has announced its brand-new drone as part of a first responder (DFR) program for public safety agencies and first responders. The program aims to reduce response times, provide situational awareness, and increase efficiency.
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A recent study performed by The ResponDrone Project found that most people are unaware that first responders are using drones. The group held focus groups in six European countries, with people sharing that they believed drones are mostly used by the military, content creators, and sold as toys.
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Fotokite already offers a clever response to two challenges for deploying drones: limited battery life and the need for a certified pilot. And now it’s tackling a third challenge with its new product: How to deploy a drone as quickly as possible in a first responder situation.
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Impossible Aerospace has launched its latest product, Air Support, a new service aimed at helping first responders respond to emergencies using a fleet of Impossible US-1 drones located on the roofs of various buildings. Air Support will allow cities to respond to emergencies 10 times faster and allows crucial information to get to first responders before arriving on the scene.
Remember the modified DJI Mavic 2 Zoom with the FLIR Boson thermal camera, that we covered earlier this year? Well, that was a prototype said Sheldon Holy from UK-based Drone Doctor and now also Revolve Drones. Now they’re back with a new and production ready version, the Revolve Thermal MK.III. The Boson 320 sensor has double the resolution of the sensor in the Mavic 2 Dual (320×240 resolution vs. 160×120), and a much narrower field of view (34° vs 57°). This allows the MK.III to detect a given heat signature at up to five times the distance that the Mavic 2 Dual is capable of, according to Revolve Drones. Keep reading for all the details but this may very well be the best drone for first responders right now, although it seems that new competition may be around the corner with the new Evo Autel 2 and Skydio 2 drones.
More than 100 pilots lift off from Jim R. Miller Park during a two-day GEMA and FEMA drone training event, participating in exercises ranging from obstacle courses to barricaded gunmen scenarios.
A hiker and dog became disoriented and lost in a terrain laden with swamps and marshes in Canada on Thursday night. A drone from the Renfrew County Paramedic team played a key part in the dramatic rescue of the duo.
Updated with drone video footage of the actual rescue.
In a world-first study, university researchers from Adelaide, Australia, and Iraq have been working on drones with special cameras and software that can tell if a person is dead or alive, for instance in disaster-stricken areas.
A drone video shows the partially burning remains of what used to be a Jim Beam warehouse filled with 45,000 barrels of bourbon at its distillery in Woodford County, Kentucky. The massive fire occurred on Wednesday. It was so hot that it melted the lights on the fire trucks, first responders said.
Oakland firefighters have been battling a massive fire overnight at a construction site where townhomes are being built. The fire was reported at 2 a.m. this morning. About 90 firefighters were on the scene as the massive fire ripped through the townhouse construction site located at West Grant and Filbert Street in Oakland, Calif. The Alameda County sheriff’s deputies brought a DJI Inspire 1 in to get footage of the fire. The drone equipped with a thermal camera shows exactly where the hotspots are.
Multiple wildfires within the B.C. Interior have sprung up over the past week after lightning struck the forest. The fires were aided by a mixture of hot and dry weather. According to BC Wildfire Service; air operations were suspended and firefighting aircraft were diverted on Monday after the sighting of a drone above the Wilson Creek fire, located 19km east of Nakusp.
DJI introduces as of today, their global authorization team that can unlock geofencing restrictions around the world, around the clock within 30 minutes. Geofencing restrictions are hardcoded into DJI’s products to prevent, as the FAA likes to call them, clueless, careless and criminal drone pilots from flying their unmanned aircraft into sensitive areas, such as the airspace around airports (SFO for instance), prisons, and other military or federal facilities. However, in times of emergencies, first responders and law enforcement officials may want to fly their drones into such areas, which is why DJI has now introduced a special team that can authorize access for specific drones to fly into areas that are typically off-limits. This feature is only available for professional drone operators and not for casual drone pilots.
A journalist was detained on Sunday as he was flying his drone dangerously close to a helicopter during the large-scale rescue operation of the Thai football team and their coach from the Tham Luang cave system in Thailand.
