The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in the UK is deploying drones in London as part of a new program called Drones as First Responders (DFR).
The project aims to deploy an UAS (Unmanned Aerial System) to reach the scene of an incident and increase the situational awareness of officers arriving on the scene.
Currently, the response time for officers dispatched to emergency calls is, on average, around eight minutes for high-priority incidents, where there is an imminent threat to life, serious threat of violence, severe injury, or significant property damage.
With the DFR program, a drone will be sent to respond to one of these incidents within two minutes, significantly increasing the MPS’s ability to understand the situation they are responding to.
According to information from The Aviationist, the DFR program uses a commercial variant of the thermal drone DJI Matrice 4TD and a Dock 3 base, located on the roof of the Islington police station.
The Dock 3 serves as a charging and storage station for the drone, providing insulating coverage that protects it from weather conditions when not in use.
The drones will be controlled from a command center located inside the station itself, where live images will be transmitted to the controller.
From there, the information gathered by the drones can be immediately provided to officers on the ground, both before their arrival and during the incident, allowing the drones to monitor the officers’ response.
It is worth noting that the live images will be recorded and may be used as evidence if necessary. Otherwise, the stored recording will be deleted after 28 days.
“This is not surveillance. It supports police operations on the ground,” said Deputy Commissioner Laurence Taylor, the national lead for drones.
The DFR program is the first of its kind in the UK and is currently focused on the London borough of Islington, although there are plans to expand it to the West End and Hyde Park by the end of 2025.
If successful, this program could be rolled out across London and even begin to shape police UAS operations nationwide.
Photo: Metropolitan Police Service. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
