Arlington PD Drone As First Responder program begins with a bang
By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill
Police departments across the U.S. are initiating Drones as First Responders (DFR) programs for a number of reasons: to search for missing persons, to get a bird’s eye view of an accident scene or to track suspects fleeing from a crime scene.
However, the police department in the city of Arlington, Texas can trace the origins of its DFR program back to a more colorful cause — fireworks.
“Our Drone as First Responder program actually started a few years back with fireworks calls,” Arlington PD Sgt. Rob Robertson, director of the department’s Aviation Unit, said in an interview. The city was encountering problems with an abundance of calls to respond to illegal fireworks displays, particularly around the July 4 and New Year’s Eve holidays.
“Our city requires us to respond to every single fireworks call,” Robertson said. “It places a tremendous strain on our resources because we may have over 1,500 calls for service related to fireworks or shots fired on those occasions.”
The police department, which had earlier launched an aviation unit featuring drones, began to deploy its UAVs to respond to the site of the firework complaint calls, in an effort to catch the perpetrators shooting off the illicit pyrotechnic displays before they had a chance to disperse.
“We started integrating drones, because what we found with those calls was that by the time officers arrived, they were usually done,” he said. Arlington PD found that by using its unmanned air resources to respond to reports of fireworks, the department was freeing its officers to respond to more serious threats, while saving money through not having to rack up scores of miles on its police cruisers.
Around the same time, dozens of police agencies were launching their own DFR programs, so Arlington PD partnered with the University of Texas at Arlington to study the efficacy of using drones to clear other types of calls for service, such as keeping an eye on people acting suspiciously or irrationally or responding to minor accidents, or calls involving loose animals.
The study, which was concluded early in 2024, incorporated surveys of citizens on the department’s use of UAVs to respond to 911 calls, as well metrics such as response times.
Robertson said fortunately for the implementation of the department’s DFR program, the city of Arlington already had in place a low-altitude airspace monitoring service using a network of sensors, including ADS-B, installed as part of its Smart City initiative.
Sensor technology company Hidden Level had developed the system to monitor and track drone activity, especially around the city’s entertainment district, which is home to such prominent sports arenas as AT&T Stadium and Globe Life Field. The existence of the system helped the department to secure a BVLOS waiver from the FAA, one of a handful of police forces across the country to earn that distinction.
Backed by the UTA research and with its BVLOS waiver in hand, “Now the DFR program is going to be targeted primarily towards high-risk incidents, calls dangerous to human life, endangered or missing people, things like that,” Robertson said.
Because traffic congestion it is not an issue in the airspace above the city, the DFR program allows the department to arrive on the scene of an incident in a fraction of the time it would take for ground units to respond. “I think it’s over 66% of the time that we’re able to beat officers there and then we’re able to provide that real-world actionable feedback that can ultimately protect human lives,” Robertson said.
Under its DFR program, Arlington PD has installed drone docking stations at two strategic locations within the city from which personnel from the city’s Real Time Crime Center can instantly launch a UAV. The drones can fly up to a 1.5-mile radius from the docks and reach speeds of up to 50 mph.
DFR as a de-escalation tool
By providing eyes on the scene before human officers have time to arrive, the DFR program can provide intelligence that helps protect the lives of officers and citizens. Robertson cited an example that the department had encountered during the DFR pilot program, in which the use of a drone to respond to a call prevented an innocuous situation from potentially developing into a something much more serious.
“We had an incident where there was a person with a weapon reported in an apartment complex waving a firearm around,” he said. A drone was launched and was soon on the scene before any officers had time to arrive.
“They’re able to use the aircraft to determine that the suspect is waving his cell phone,” he said. “This is where it’s a de-escalation tool, because now instead of those officers going in, thinking they’re about to confront an armed individual they know it was just somebody waving a cell phone around. There’s not even a reason to respond anymore.”
Another, more serious incident encountered by the department’s DFR program occurred last year, Robertson said.
“We had a school shooting on the south side of our city,” he said. A drone dispatched to the scene was able to locate the suspected shooter as he was attempting to enter a wooded area and the DFR team was able to guide officers on the ground, who were able to take the suspect into custody.
“Ultimately, what we’re seeing is DFR is not a replacement for police officers, but it is a force multiplier that helps us do our job better. It helps us do our job safer, and it allows us to provide more effective service delivery for the citizens we serve.”
Arlington PD operates a fleet of about two dozen UAVs, most of which are DJI models. In addition to operating its DFR program, the department also deploys drones in its Field Ops and Interior Ops divisions.
Drones are deployed in interior operations to respond to in-progress incidents inside of a building where there’s a clear and present danger, such as an active shooter or a dangerous felony suspect who the police need to apprehend.
“Rather than sending first responders in and putting them in dangerous situations, we are sending technology in; we’re using robotics essentially,” Robertson said. The department combines the use of a ground robot that can avoid obstacles and open doors with a UAV that can scan large areas quickly, locate the suspect and assess the potential threat he poses to human officers.
“Now we’re better equipped to formulate a plan to get them out of there where we are not putting our officers in harm’s way,” Robertson said.
Like most public service agencies across the country that operate drone fleets primarily composed of DJI drones, Arlington PD is keeping a close eye on any potential federal decisions made about the future of Chinese-made drones in the U.S.
“I would just say that we’re monitoring it, but we’re very hopeful that the cybersecurity audit is completed as was mandated,” Robertson said. “I want to know because there’s controversies on both sides of the equation, and over 90% of public safety are using DJI aircraft. So, if it’s a problem, public safety agencies need to know about it.”
At the local level, Arlington PD has implemented safeguards to ensure the data collected by their drones remains safe and secure. These include the use of segmented networks for vendor equipment, such as docking stations, and the use of cellular hotspots to maintain an air-gapped environment for field operations.
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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.
Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a professional drone services marketplace, and a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and the regulatory environment for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles focused on the commercial drone space and is an international speaker and recognized figure in the industry. Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing for new technologies.
For drone industry consulting or writing, Email Miriam.
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