Tribune News Service — On Tuesday, the Greenville City Council unanimously approved an agreement with Motorola Solutions for a “drone-as-first-responder” system for the Greenville Police Department.
The program will allow Greenville PD drone pilots to remotely deploy drones to priority calls either before officers arrive on the scene or in coordination with ground units.
According to the police departments proposal to start the program, examples of situations where DFRs may be deployed include in-progress violent crimes, burglaries, major traffic accidents, searching for missing or endangered people, and other incidents that are highly time sensitive.
“The Greenville Police Department is always looking for innovative ways to better serve our community and be more efficient, also to keep our officers safe when we’re doing it,” Greenville Chief of Police Chris Smith said to the council.
While the full term of the agreement is six years and costs a total of $400,000, the city will be able to implement the system for the first year at no cost while officials decide if they want to continue with the program.
As the department is preparing to launch its DFR program, it will need to operate under FAA requirements as well as Greenville PD’s established policy. These included launch criteria, operator training, mission logging and privacy safeguards.
Greenville PD’s drone commander Lt. Dallas Fouse explained at the council meeting that the department will coordinate with Zipline (the company that designed, built and oversees Walmart’s drone delivery system) to make sure that both GPD’s drones and Walmart’s drones are able to “talk to each other” to avoid collisions or interference.
The department’s drone pilots will also be able to manually change a drone’s course if a higher priority incident occurs while a drone is already deployed.
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City of Greenville Approves 'Drone-as-First-Responder' Program
What to Know:
- Greenville City Council approved a six-year agreement with Motorola Solutions to launch a drone-as-first-responder program for the police department.
- The system enables drone pilots to deploy drones remotely to high-priority calls ahead of or alongside ground units.
- The program will follow Federal Aviation Administration regulations and departmental policies, with coordination efforts underway to ensure interoperability with Walmart’s existing drone delivery system.
