Police drone

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Police drone during a mission

Police drones ( UAS-Pol for short for English Unmanned Aircraft System Police , unmanned flight system police ) are unmanned aircraft that are used by the police for reconnaissance and investigation purposes.

technology

The unmanned aerial vehicles weigh up to 10 kg. The aircraft used by the police are like model helicopters with four to eight rotors, so-called quadro, hexa or octocopters . They can fly up to 500 meters high and, depending on the camera, deliver photos or videos unnoticed. Most of the time the cameras are movable and controlled remotely. The images are transmitted directly to a ground station via VHF or UHF radio link. In the case of smaller systems, such as those used by the German police up to now, the ground station consists of a laptop with peripherals; in the case of larger devices, it consists of a control center, which is partly manned by two operators. Depending on the design, the devices also have special sensor technology, such as thermal imaging cameras and night cameras.

In contrast to model helicopters, the lift is usually generated by low-noise electric motors, which has the advantage of being inconspicuous, but leads to relatively short flights due to the limited battery capacity . Modern devices have gyroscopic instruments and acceleration sensors (accelerometers).

commitment

Drones are being used on a larger scale by the police in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands. Various projects are ongoing around the world to develop operational, partially autonomously operating micro-drones. Sometimes they should stay in the air as a "swarm". When it comes to development requirements, military and police use is often blurred.

Germany

In Germany, the federal police and the state police in Bavaria , Berlin (since 2009), Hesse , Lower Saxony , North Rhine-Westphalia , Rhineland-Palatinate , Saarland and Saxony use various police drones (as of 2018). The state police of Brandenburg (tested since 2018), Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (from 2019), Saxony-Anhalt (tests in 2018) and Schleswig-Holstein (planning started in 2018) are testing drones or the procurement process (status: 2018).

Type Manufacturer Users Technical data / equipment
HD6-1000 exabotix Police Bavaria

Police in Baden-Württemberg

Water protection police Hamburg

LKA Hamburg

The HD6-1000 is a flying robot system from the Lower Saxony manufacturer exabotix based in Bad Lauterberg / Harz. The drone is powered by 6 quiet electric motors and can stay in the air for a maximum of 45 minutes. The device can be equipped with a wide variety of payloads such as thermal imaging cameras, day and night cameras, zoom cameras and gas sensors. The diameter of the drone is 1 meter, the maximum speed is 60 km / h, the radio range is up to 4 kilometers and the take-off weight can be a maximum of 9.5 kg.
Sensocopter Diehl BGT Defense / microdrones GmbH Police Saxony
EMT Aladin EMT-Penzberg Federal Police The drone has a maximum range of 15 kilometers, a flight time of 60 minutes, a top speed of 90 km / h and a length of 1.46 meters and a weight of 4 kg. Equipment: Image acquisition of objects using a differential GPS .
EMT fan copter EMT-Penzberg Federal Police , Police Saxony Can fly into houses and be equipped with a daylight video camera, a twilight video camera, an IR thermal imaging video camera or a high-resolution photo camera, as well as a microphone, a controlled zoom video camera, chemical sensors or radioactivity sensors.
AirRobot AR 100-B AirRobot North Rhine-Westphalia police
AirRobot AR 200-X6 AirRobot North Rhine-Westphalia police
Multirotor Eagle G4 Police service-drone.de GmbH State Criminal Police Office Berlin (Forensic Institute) Commissioned in 2009
Multirotor Surveying Robot Police service-drone.de GmbH State Criminal Police Office Berlin (Forensic Institute) specially developed for crime scene documentation and equipped with a high-resolution full - frame camera ; Dimensions: 84 cm diameter, 54 cm height, 5 kg; Commissioned in 2017
Own development from model kit - Police in Saarland Optical reconnaissance unit (digital camera, board camera, video transmission) and a remote control and telemetry system.

use

The police see a wide range of uses for drones: deployments in large-scale demonstrations, kidnappings and hostage-taking, monitoring of railway systems and crime scene recordings. Although the objects in flight are relatively expensive with a purchase price of around 50,000 euros each, the police are even hoping to significantly reduce the expenditure on missions in the long term through better reconnaissance.

In November 2017, the Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann presented the six drones, which will be used by the Bavarian police in a test concept from January 2018. The multicopters are supposed to document danger and damage situations, as well as provide support in recording the crime scene with high-resolution cameras. Operations in demonstrations are not planned.

In March 2010, the Interior Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia announced that the state police were testing drones.

In 2008, the state police in Saxony started a first pilot project with aerial drones. The “Sensocopter” was used there and, according to the police, has been used successfully in the fight against hooligans since then . This drone was developed by the Überlingen armaments company Diehl BGT Defense in cooperation with the Microdrones company. After the successful use of the “Sensocopter”, the Saxon police started testing a heavier aircraft with a longer range and better wind resistance. The testing phase of the last leased MD4-1000 drone was officially completed on September 30, 2010. The device costs 65,000 euros. According to the Sächsischer Zeitung, testing the drones did not bring the hoped-for success. There were also issues with handling this drone, including crashes and collisions.

From 2008 to spring 2010, two drones had 18 official missions. The drones started at soccer games, looking for cannabis plants in corn fields and solving break-ins. The total cost of the project up to the beginning of 2010 was over 110,000 euros. The drones are stationed at the State Police Department Central Services and the State Criminal Police Office.

The Federal Police initially used two drones Aladin and Fancopter from the German company EMT-Penzberg . These were mainly used for reconnaissance flights by the special unit GSG 9 . The Aladin drone was originally developed for military use by the Bundeswehr and has a range of 15 kilometers with a maximum flight time of 60 minutes. In addition to image acquisition, objects are located using a differential GPS. The device flies 45 to 90 km / h and has a wingspan of 1.46 meters and a weight of 4 kg.

The Fancopter was specially developed for the "urban area". It is a completely autonomous system that can fly into houses with a diameter of 50 centimeters and a height of around 60 centimeters. The fan copter can reach a height of up to 1000 meters and stay in the air for 25 minutes. The take-off weight is 1.5 kg. The equipment can include a daylight video camera, a twilight video camera, an IR thermal imaging video camera or a high-resolution photo camera. The device can also be equipped with a microphone, a controlled zoom video camera, chemical sensors or radioactivity sensors. On behalf of the Conference of Interior Ministers, the Federal Police are testing not only Aladin and EMT fan copters, but also AirRobot drones in their laboratory in Lübeck.

At the European Championships in Switzerland and Austria in 2008, the “security architecture” provided for the use of drones for the major police event. At the G8 summit in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the protests against the summit, the police used drones.

Castor 2010

During the protest actions against the Castor transport to the Gorleben interim storage facility in 2010, the Lower Saxony police deployed the MD4-200 reconnaissance drone. According to a spokeswoman for the Lüneburg police department, the aircraft was used four times. The data were used for aerial reconnaissance, operational management, preservation of evidence and documentation. According to the police, the aim was to use the recordings to investigate criminal offenses. The images from the mini drone were transmitted in real time to its ground station and recorded there.

criticism

After the drone was deployed in Castor Transport in 2010, the Lower Saxony state data protection officer strongly criticized the deployment. A representative told the NDR : “In the description of the procedure, the police would have to specify the purposes for which the drone is actually used. So first you have to know what the police really want to achieve with the drone. And that hasn't happened so far. The police have therefore been operating this system since the first test run without a legal basis. "

After the use of drones in the Castor protests in 2010 became known, the Lüchow-Dannenberg citizens' initiative described the spying of the demonstrators as "legally extremely problematic". "Photos and video recordings of the drone violate the privacy rights of protesters," criticized a spokesman.

Legal

Appropriate professional qualifications are required to operate the UAV. The police call officers who have this additional qualification “aircraft remote driver”. For the control of the small micro-drones, short “remote aircraft operator” training courses are sufficient. In Lower Saxony, according to the Ministry of the Interior, six police officers were "briefed and certified" as part of a two-day training course. The police are liable in the event of damage, as there is no insurance for the devices.

According to the police, the drones are used to take “overview shots” from a great height, which are unproblematic in terms of data protection law.

The Federal Ministry of the Interior has commissioned the Federal Police to carry out a project for the "Validation of UAS for integration into the airspace" (VUSIL). The project aims to provide information on airworthiness requirements (design, execution and equipment of the drones) as well as participation in air traffic (flight operations in different airspaces, avoidance of collisions, compliance with the avoidance rule). VUSIL should prove that it is possible to safely participate in air traffic with UAS. Emergency landing procedures , the security of radio links, the sensors used, airspace divisions and height graduation are checked.

At the beginning of 2010, the federal government tightened the air traffic regulations , after which unmanned aerial vehicles weighing more than 25 kilograms may only be launched in exceptional cases. You may only fly in an isolated area as long as they do not pose a threat to public safety and order. According to this law, the armed forces and the police are not bound by these requirements.

Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer told the Süddeutsche Zeitung in November 2010 : "There must be no experiments with drones at the expense of safety, their operation still raises too many questions". The European aviation safety authority Eurocontrol recommends that military and civil UAVs should only travel in closed airspace, away from all other air traffic.

European Union

An EU program proposes that police officers should patrol with drones in the future. The drones are supposed to identify, observe and track suspects and provide the officers on the ground with all the information they need to gain access and possibly also provide evidence of legal proceedings.

In a research project by the EU border protection agency Frontex , so-called Border Security Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (BSUAV) are being developed to control external borders and to combat terrorism. The program is integrated into the science funding program with the code FP7 and costs around 5 million euros. OPARUS , the project for the development of the European drone, is being promoted with the participation of a consortium of Sagem , BAE Systems , Leonardo , Thales , EADS , Dassault Aviation , ISDEFE, Israel Aircraft Industries and others. The aim is to “develop an open architecture for an unmanned aerial vehicle that can carry out unarmed air-to-ground operations in a large radius over land and sea.” (“Elaborate an open architecture for the operation of unmanned air-to-ground wide area land and sea border surveillance platforms in Europe ”.) The consortium was provided with a budget of 11.8 million euros from the EU. As part of civil security research, the EU project AEROCEPTOR investigates the use of non-lethal weapons by armed drones to stop “non-cooperative” land and sea vehicles.

Great Britain

In Great Britain , an unmanned flying object up to 22 meters long hovered over London for the Olympic Games in 2012 , equipped with infrared sensors and powerful cameras to monitor activities.

The manufacturer of military drones BAE Systems adapted some of its devices for civil use. A consortium has been working since 2009. a. BAE is involved in a police drone, led by Kent Police. The aim is to develop a drone suitable for everyday use (... integration “into the routine work of the police, border authorities and other government agencies” across the UK) . A maritime use was considered in the planning phase. The data obtained should also be sold to private companies. A prototype of the developed drone should start test flights at the end of 2010.

The Civil Aviation Authority is developing a license for the operation of UAVs in civil airspace.

Netherlands

Drug investigators in the Netherlands use the eight-hour airworthy “Cana-Chopper” to search for illegal marijuana plantations. The "Cana-Chopper" - a play on words made up of cannabis and chopper (English colloquial language for helicopters) - was developed by the Dutch police especially for drug searches. It is controlled from the ground with a laptop, which makes it very flexible and also much cheaper than a real helicopter, as a spokesman for the Dutch police said. The first success was already achieved in the test phase in April 2009: the new air monitoring system enabled a hemp plantation to be dug at Doetinchem .

The mini helicopter is equipped with extensive technology. In addition to a conventional camera, the equipment also includes a thermal camera and a bell that can suck in air and analyze its components. The sensors react to the smell of hemp. Although illegal drug cultivation often takes place indoors, the smell of hemp can still be detected through the sensors.

Switzerland

The Swiss border guards use drones throughout Switzerland to combat cross-border crime and organized smuggling. During the European Football Championship in 2008 , the cities of Basel , Bern and Zurich also used drones as part of their security measures, after they had already been used several times as a test from November 2007.

United States

"Predator" as it is used in the USA for border surveillance.

In a research project in Georgia , USA , the use of drones in "swarms" is being tested. Drones could virtually monitor entire city districts non-stop in “shifts” and control themselves using intelligent software. That the Department of Homeland Security is part of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Bureau sets the model Predator B , a border control on the border with Mexico.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b drones at the Bavarian police. Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior, for Building and Transport , November 20, 2017, accessed on March 31, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Drones are revolutionizing fire and police operations: flying eyes for emergency services . ( Memento from April 1, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) swr.de, October 9, 2017.
  3. ↑ Police drones. In: drohnen-kampagne.de. Accessed March 31, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Ulrich Wangermann: Brandenburg's police want to buy a drone. In: Märkische Allgemeine . June 24, 2017, accessed March 31, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Thomas Volgmann: Sicherheit MV: Police are planning to use drones in the country. In: Schweriner People's Newspaper . February 3, 2018, accessed March 31, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Jan Schumann: Search and traffic monitoring: Police in Saxony-Anhalt are testing the use of drones. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung . February 5, 2018, accessed March 31, 2018 .
  7. ↑ State Police: With drones on the hunt for criminals. In: Lübecker Nachrichten . February 10, 2018, accessed March 31, 2018 .
  8. ↑ André Zand-Vakili, Christoph Heinemann: Why the Hamburg police rely on drones . Abendblatt.de, September 13, 2018.
  9. ↑ a b Frank Uferkamp: NRW police go on the hunt for criminals with drones. In: Westdeutsche Zeitung . February 21, 2013, accessed May 16, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Lutz Schnedelbach: Criminal Technical Institute Berlin: Blue Thunder . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 2, 2012, accessed on February 9, 2019.
  11. ↑ Matthias Lukaschewitsch: This is the new flying eye of the Berlin police . In: BZ , September 15, 2017, accessed on February 9, 2019.
  12. ↑ Answer to the question from MP Michael Hilberer (PIRATE) re: Use of drones in Saarland. Printed matter 15/455 (15/384). State Parliament of Saarland , April 30, 2013, accessed on May 16, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Karin Truscheit: Drones at the police: "Quieter than helicopters" . In: FAZ.NET . November 20, 2017, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed January 17, 2018]).
  14. ↑ Detlef Borchers : Saxon police tests “flying eyes” for securing evidence. In: heise online . February 15, 2008, accessed May 16, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Balance after one year of the overall football concept ( memento of March 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), press release of the Saxony Police of March 10, 2009
  16. ↑ Gunnar Saft: Saxony's police drones are threatened with crash landing. In: Saxon newspaper . March 28, 2010, accessed May 16, 2020 .
  17. ^ Matthias Monroy: Drones: German police officers as remote aircraft drivers. In: Telepolis . February 17, 2010, accessed May 16, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Demonstrations against Castor transports: surveillance drones in action during protests. ( Memento from November 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Tagesschau.de , November 16, 2010.
  19. ↑ Dispute over surveillance drone. ( Memento from December 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) NDR Info , March 26, 2010.
  20. ↑ Union speaks of an organizational disaster: Police follow up on Castor criticism. ( Memento from November 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Tagesschau.de, November 17, 2010.
  21. ↑ Police and fire brigade are testing remote-controlled mini drones. Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior and Sport , September 29, 2008, accessed on May 16, 2020 .
  22. ↑ Alexander Forehead: Crowd in the sky. In: sueddeutsche.de. November 12, 2010, accessed August 3, 2018 .
  23. ↑ Jörg Diehl: Police Drones: Assumption Command for the Fair Weather Scouts. In: Spiegel Online . June 22, 2010, accessed June 10, 2018 .
  24. ↑ Euro-Drones update: more funding from FP7, FRONTEX and EDA. In: Monitoring European Police. November 16, 2010, accessed on May 16, 2020 .
  25. ↑ Matthias Monroy: Armament of police drones is making progress - news on the EU research project AEROCEPTOR. In: Netzpolitik.org . August 28, 2013, accessed May 16, 2020 .
  26. ↑ Patrick Beuth: Combating Terrorism: The Drone Fantasies of the EU Commission. In: Zeit Online . April 16, 2013, accessed February 14, 2017 .
  27. ^ Paul Lewis: CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style spy drones. In: The Guardian . January 23, 2010, accessed on May 16, 2020 .
  28. ↑ Markus Balser: Emmerich - drug search from the air. In: Rheinische Post . April 29, 2009, accessed May 16, 2020 .
  29. ↑ Drone operations against criminals. In: 20 minutes , May 17, 2010.
  30. ↑ Drones have been in the air for over 100 hours. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , July 1, 2008.
  31. ↑ Surveillance drones over Zurich. ( Memento from September 11, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Swiss television , March 23, 2008.
  32. ↑ Homeland Security: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Border Surveillance , CRS Report for Congress, RS21698, February 7, 2005, p. 3.