Prosper P.D. launches DFR 2.0 program with Flock Safety technology
By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill
As police departments across the U.S. embrace the concept of using drones as first responders (DFR), some law enforcement agencies, such as the Prosper, Texas Police Department, are moving forward into the future with DFR 2.0.
The department recently implemented a DFR program that combines the capability of drones to rapidly respond to a scene and relay valuable information to police personnel with a comprehensive citywide network of security cameras and license plate readers.
In May, Prosper became the first police agency in the state to adopt the Flock Aerodome DFR system, developed by public safety software company Flock Safety.
“What this artificial intelligence technology is providing is a level of officer safety we’ve never had before, which I think is absolutely incredible,” said Prosper P.D. Sgt. Keith Mann, head of the department’s DFR operations.
Flock Safety’s DFR solution uses remote operation software to control the police department’s UAV and drone docking stations and to respond to emergency incidents, Fritz Reber Flock Safety’s director of DFR consulting said in an interview. The company’s other security tools, notably its license plate readers (LPR) “are really critical to DFR because they serve as launch triggers,” he said
“The bread and butter of Flock Safety was LPRs license plate reader alerts, and that is a big source of information for officers,” Reber said.
Prosper’s DFR system employs the FlockOS a real-time intelligence platform to integrate data from numerous sources, including video, license plate recognition (LPR), and audio to provide a comprehensive view of incidents.
Reber described the system as “a single-pane-of-glass way of viewing all these sensors that you have access to,” in addition to the drone’s camera.
Mann said the system allows the DFR drone, a DJI Matrice 350, to launch from its rooftop drone nest, and to fly autonomously to the site of an incident and immediately start transmitting real-time intelligence to the Prosper command center.
“You have a call for service come in and my drone operator from the police department will launch our drone,” he said. Because the city doesn’t yet have ground-based radar, under the department’s FAA Certificate of Authorization the drone only is permitted to fly under the watchful eye of a visual observer (VO) on the roof.
Once on the scene, the drone will begin transmitting to data officers at the operation center as well as those en route to the site, guiding them along the safest route to the scene, and serving as an overwatch of the area to alert responders of any potentially dangerous situation that the 911 dispatchers were not aware of.
Mann said having access to the LPR data gives responding officers an added level of protection. He recalled an incident in which an LPR camera posted in the city spotted a vehicle that was associated with felony warrants traveling through town.
“The drone found the vehicle within less than two minutes, and was able to bring in patrol resources,” he said.
“Those patrol resources were able to pull the vehicle over, identify the individual inside the car, and actually had this person, who had multiple felony warrants on them, in handcuffs within less than six minutes.”
Absent the license plate reader and the DFR system, the only way an officer would have been alerted to the presences of a felon driving through town would have been if the vehicle had been speeding or involved in a wreck. “That is one of the biggest benefits that I see. The suspect was safe. My officers were safe,” he said.
Once the drone returns from its mission, in less than two minutes the docking station will automatically swap out its depleted battery with a fresh one, equipping the drone to take off on its next assignment.
Different drones for different purposes
The DFR drone has operational boundaries that keep it within three to three-and-half miles of its charging station. With a good tailwind, the UAV can travel as fast as 58 mph, Mann said.
“For DFR, the first principle is speed. That’s what distinguishes it from other types of drone operations, getting the drone launched and to the scene as quickly as possible,” he said.
Mann said the city’s DFR drone is an extremely durable vehicle, able to fly at altitudes of 400 feet in the face of high winds. “We’ve had gusts of 30 miles an hour here, and the drone operates flawlessly. You have a little bit less battery life, I will say that, because it’s working to stabilize everything that’s going on up there.”
Interested persons can follow the progress of the city’s DFR program on the Prosper PD Flight Dashboard. According to the Dashboard, between June 3 and July 3, 2025, the DFR drone responded to 118 calls, resulting in a 60% reduction in average response time compared with non-DFR calls. The average response time was about four minutes. Thirty-one subjects were located and four calls were cleared without requiring the response of human patrol officers.
In addition to the DJI M 350 used for DFR operations, the Prosper PD also equips a number of its patrol vehicles for mobile drone operations, which can work in concert with the DFR drone, Mann said.
“I have special gear in the back that allow me to charge the batteries. I have TV monitors, all those kinds of things,” he said. “We carry the DJI M (Matrice) 30s in the back of the patrol units.” The drone patrol units also carry DJI Avatas, compact first-person view drones.
“If we had a situation where the DFR drone performing overwatch had to return, then my patrol drone pilot can launch their M 30 to provide overwatch on a situation. And then if it’s a felony traffic stop, we use our Avata,” Mann said. “After you pull people out, we would send the Avata drone into the vehicle and allow the Avata drone to do a 360 (search) inside the vehicle to make sure nobody else is hiding in the car.”
Read more:
- Flock Safety and the Future of DFR Technology, on the Drone Radio Show
- Flock Safety Launches Real-Time 911 Drone Response and New Georgia Manufacturing Facility
- Flock Safety Secures $275M Funding, Accelerates Drone Expansion
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.
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