Palm Springs Police Department Aims to Revolutionize Drone Response with DFR 2.0

Expanding UAV Operations for Public Safety with Beyond Visual Line of Sight and Advanced Community Engagement

by DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill

The city of Palm Springs, California is planning to expand its police department’s current drone program early next year by launching what city officials are calling Drones as First Responders 2.0.

Police Lt. William Hutchinson, manager of the department’s drone operations, said plans call for the department to operate a program involving three drones stationed at different locations in the city, capable of being dispatched to answer 9-1-1 calls, without the need of visual observers (V.O.).

“We will include a radar system with the ability to eliminate the V.O.,” he said. The proposed program, which is still pending the approval of the City Council, is also dependent on gaining authorization from the FAA, allowing beyond-visual-line-of-sight flights.

Complicating its quest to win BVLOS approval is the fact that the city is within the Class D airspace surrounding Palm Springs International Airport. However, Hutchinson does not see this as an impediment.

“Our local airport and local tower are very excited about the program, even though we’re in Class D airspace,” he said. Working in conjunction with the local airport’s operations officials, the police department is developing “a complete package” of safety, and detect-and-avoid mitigation measures to present to the FAA during the application process.

The Palm Springs PD launched its drone program in 2022, with a single Matrice 300 that was dispatched on a call-out basis for missions such as search-and-rescue operations. Currently the department operates a fleet of 15 UAVs, comprising one Matrice 300, two M30s, five M3Ts, three Avata 2s and four Minis.

California home to first DFR program

Southern California is home to Chula Vista, which launched the first DFR program in the nation in 2018. Hutchinson said the proposed Palm Springs DFR operations will expand on the concept of that city’s pioneering program.

“Chula Vista is 1.0. They had visual observers on the roof,” he said. Instead, Palm Springs is patterning its DFR program on that of the northern California city of Campbell, outside of San Jose, which recently announced the use of optical and radar sensors to gain FAA approval for BVLOS operations.

The proposed Palm Spring program will call for the purchase of three DJI Doc 2 drone stations, and three Matrice 3DT drones. Two of the docking stations will be located at the city’s fire stations, one on the north side of the city, the other on the south side, and third docking station will be sited on the roof of a commercial building in the city’s downtown corridor. City officials estimate that the three drones and docking stations will cost about $111,000, which includes three years of software support.

As part of this program, the city will build out a real-time operations center in its police department headquarters, Hutchinson said.

The city is launching a public-engagement program to get the community’s input and answer their questions as to what the proposed DFR program will be and what it won’t be.

“Everybody wants to know: who has access to fly drones? Where’s that data going? How is it stored? Are you flying over just my house doing random surveillance, or are you going to be flying for a specific purpose? Are you arming the drones? Do they have facial recognition?” Hutchinson said. “Those are the type of questions that we’re seeing pop up.”

In the interest of transparency, Palm Springs plans to take a page from Chula Vista’s book and provide a public dashboard on the DroneSense platform that will track each drone flight, showing the date and time and roughly the area it took place, as well as the purpose of the flight and the case number it is attached to.

“It’ll show the flight in real time so people can actually see the drone and where it flew to,” he said. “The only data that’s being stored in there is the flight information.”

Data, including any recordings, stored on the drone’s SD card will go directly into the department’s integrated digital evidence vault. The department will only store certain video that directly pertains to the incident the drone was dispatched to observe. In the case of a burglary, for example, the drone will start recording when it arrives on the scene and end its recording once a suspect is taken into custody.

On its return flight to its docking station, the drone’s camera will be pointing toward the horizon, so as not to record anything on the ground beneath it.

Footage that is recorded will be retained until the case is adjudicated or for a minimum of one year, whichever is greater. “If we’re not on an incident, we’re not going to be conducting random surveillance, meaning, we’re not going to have a drone just cruising around looking for trouble,” Hutchinson said.

The police department will present a formal proposal for the DFR program to the Palm Springs City Council in January, and pending approval, will begin purchasing the needed equipment, and establishing the radar system, while simultaneously pursuing its application for FAA approval.

Despite the looming threat that Congress could pass legislation restricting the sale of Chinese-made drones and components, Hutchinson said he feels confident that choosing DJI products for the city’s DFR program is the right decision.

“The way that I see this right now is, I can buy five drones compared to the price of one American drone and get far better technology and far better quality,” he said. In any case, even if the federal government moves to regulate the sale of drones made in China, it would probably delay the ban from going into effect for some time period – such as three to five years – to give public service agencies time to convert their fleets to government-approved drones.

Given the pace at which drone technology is advancing, the police department will likely be looking at updating its drone fleet in three years anyway, he said.

“And so no, I’m not paused on all those Chinese drone issues. We’re focused on saving lives and getting technology up that makes sense immediately. And if we can do that and start saving lives, that’s all that matters to me at this point.”

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Read more:

• DFR in Australia: Sphere Drones Secures Contract with WA Police Force
• Campbell Police Department Secures 24/7 Waiver for Drone as First Responder Program
• Montgomery County Secures First Conviction with Drone as First Responder Program: A Milestone in Public Safety

Jim Magill is a Houston-based writer with almost a quarter-century of experience covering technical and economic developments in the oil and gas industry. After retiring in December 2019 as a senior editor with S&P Global Platts, Jim began writing about emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robots and drones, and the ways in which they’re contributing to our society. In addition to DroneLife, Jim is a contributor to Forbes.com and his work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, U.S. News & World Report, and Unmanned Systems, a publication of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.