Drone operator explains how he found missing man

(flir one : http://www.flir.com/flirone/ )

Not unless that person shot at or killed another officer.

The low cost of drones is going to make good things like this happen.

But it is also going to allow the law enforcement to track every person at a protest, figure out who they are and put them on a no-fly list or some other watch list. I am completely convinced drones will be used at the next DNC and RNC conventions for 2016.

image processing becomes the next obstacle after range. It is still very possible to overlook your target when the drone is moving quickly through an area, but it could be made easier with image recognition software.

The one in question more than likely used a normal visual spectrum camera. Cheap, repurposed security board cameras or GoPros are the norm.

FLIR cameras are available[1], but they're very expensive, so, yes, it's very unlikely this guy was using thermal imaging.

>What is the max range on a reasonably priced drone these days (transmitter range or battery range)?

The answer is a solid "it depends." For a multirotor, your biggest limitation is battery capacity. 10-15 minutes of flight time would be above average.

As far as radio systems go, again, it depends on the frequencies and antennas being used. The most common systems use 2.4GHz for control and 5.8GHz for the video downlink. 1-2KM is pretty typical. A fixed wing with a 433MHz/1.3GHz system and directional antennas can potentially make 20-30KM flights. This is all with readily available equipment at fairly low cost.

[1] - http://www.atlantahobby.com/Store/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCa...

However, if you want reasons:

1) Hazard to the uninvolved

A car is confined roughly to roads. A car failing on a road is unlikely to deviate much from the road (likely to encounter telephone poles, trees, curbs, guardrails, etc.) and is unlikely to kill unrelated people even it it hurts another motorist.

A drone falling from the sky is a hazard to non-drone people--when it fails it IS coming out of the sky.

Sure, you could confine the drones to over roads, but the disruptive effects, as you point out, are mostly about NOT being confined to a road.

2) Liability

How do you trace that failed drone back to the person controlling it? It's wireless. Now all drones need to be registered.

3) Autonomy

Do you want a drone to have some autonomy? Before you say no, I would personally rather have a functioning drone fly home safely if it loses radio link rather than drop out of the sky. Who's responsible for that autonomy?

4) Collisions

Drones would be a huge hazard near where planes are flying. Sure, banning drones near airports can be done. However, commercial airplanes have fairly heavily traffic corridors by virtue of the ATC system, and some of the corridors go over land in the middle of nowhere where drones would like to be operating.

5) Law enforcement/military

Drones render terrain control suspect. This has NOT sunk in to most law enforcement (and probably not much military, either, since the US hasn't yet fought an enemy armed with drones of its own.). Using a drone to put even something as simple as a flashbang behind a police line would cause total chaos. Police are used to winning by surrounding--smaller overall force, but only deployed as a greater number against a smaller number in terrain control. Drones can come from any direction, can be totally automated, and are extremely hard to target (we use shotguns for bird hunting instead of rifles for a reason). I would be stunned if some of the drug gangs aren't already deploying drones--we're talking about people who deploy submarines for crying out loud.

There are good reasons for the FAA to knee-jerk to "NO! STOP!"

Just check out all these downed drones, many of which crashed due to mechanical issues - http://makezine.com/magazine/drowned-drones-when-a-multicopt...

But I'm not sure if the drone is not the news here. I think a drone can be a cheap way to search from above. Instead of using a helicopter multiple drones could be used saving costs and covering a larger area.

[1] Read 'Avoid News'.

A 'drone' is a cheap and effective way to have a camera with a huge field of view operating in areas that humans and helicopters cannot, or just doing things that it would be prohibitively expensive to do otherwise.

You can fly a 'drone' over a river, where a human would be hard pressed to follow, and you can fly a drone amongst trees where helicopters could not fly. You can do both of these things cheaply, and in a far more scalable fashion. 'Drones' don't need roads or other such infrastructure, and can carry decent sized payloads practically anywhere.

The application of 'drones' has huge impact on a large number of areas of applications, and it would be silly not to recognise that.

Somewhat sensationalist it may be, but in my opinion the advent of these things is worth it.

>"Had we had not seen him then, the drone would have seen him a few minutes later since he was in the search area we were given to look at. If nothing else, the drone helped us cover a huge area in a short amount of time that would have taken many volunteers hours to search."

I think that the cheap and quick aspects of drones are really important here.