Drones Revolutionize First Response: Search & Rescue and Accident Investigations

In the fast-evolving landscape of public safety, a silent revolution has emerged with the concept of drones as first responders (DFR), search and rescue (SAR) life-savers and accident investigation accelerators. Incidents can happen anytime, anywhere. Whether it is a 911 call to the police, a missing person case or a traffic collision, time is of the essence. DFRs improve traditional response and investigation methods to save resources and time as well as reduce risk for first responders. With the emergence of drones as a public safety tool for initial response, DFR, SAR and accident investigations, a new era of efficiency and effectiveness has dawned. 

Utilizing Drones as First Responders

In the past, arriving at the scene after any 911 call required precious minutes to mobilize personnel and equipment. The DFR model has changed this by significantly cutting response times. Equipped with high-resolution cameras, thermal imaging or other advanced sensors, drones can swiftly survey any scene from the skies and provide crucial data to first responders.

Carahsoft Drones Disaster Response Blog Embedded Image 2023In December 2015, the Chula Vista Police Department (CVPD) established the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Committee with the primary aim of evaluating the integration of UAS into its public safety operations.[1] The subsequent drone program represents a groundbreaking milestone, as the nation’s first instance of employing drones as first responders. Since then, the initiative has reached a total of 16,736 calls responded to, 2,273 assisted arrests and an average response time of 96.66 seconds from dispatch to on-scene arrival.[2]

In addition to speed, drones offer a unique aerial perspective and allow public safety professionals to understand the extent of the incident, identify potential hazards and allocate resources more effectively. This improved situational awareness helps first responders make informed decisions, while enhancing the safety of both citizens and personnel. 

Enabling Search and Rescue Missions

SAR operations often involve difficult terrains and adverse weather conditions. These challenges have seen a remarkable transformation with the integration of drones. Drones can cover vast areas quickly and efficiently, greatly improving the chances of locating missing persons or survivors.

For example, the Weber County Search and Rescue (WCSAR) has taken a significant stride towards augmenting safety and efficiency through the establishment of a Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) program which provides invaluable aerial support to ground personnel. Prior to the sUAS program, the average search time for a person in distress was 4 hours and 35 minutes. Since the program’s inception, this time has been drastically reduced to 58 minutes.[3] These statistics underscore the impact of UAS technology on SAR operations, greatly enhancing response times and ultimately increasing the chances of successful outcomes. 

Offering More Efficient and Effective Investigations 

Accident investigations play a crucial role in determining the causes and contributing factors behind incidents, especially for traffic-related mishaps. Drones equipped with 3D mapping technology have revolutionized manual measurements and reconstructions by creating accurate digital reconstructions of accident scenes in record time. With a drone, a process that sometimes can take 6-8 hours by investigators can be accomplished in 3-4.[4]

What sets this modern approach apart is its data-driven essence. Drones, armed with their high-resolution cameras and advanced sensors, facilitate the collection of intricate data from accident scenes. This wealth of information serves as the bedrock for constructing precise digital reconstructions, offering investigators unprecedented insights into the unfolding of events. The Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana reported a 60% reduction in overall scene time thanks to UAS deployment, allowing them to efficiently measure an 800-foot scene in just 22 minutes.[5] 

Similarly, the Oro Valley Police Department in Arizona and the Houston Fire Department in Texas witnessed significant improvements in incident response times, with the former achieving a 32% reduction in roadway and incident clearance times, and the latter experiencing a 40% reduction in scene time, ultimately enhancing safety and efficiency in their operations.[6]

Looking Ahead 

The journey of drones from being mere recreational gadgets to becoming indispensable tools for the public safety community has been truly remarkable. With advancements in technology, it can be expected that drones will become even more sophisticated and versatile in the future. The potential for integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance drone capabilities, such as real-time object recognition or predictive analytics, holds exciting possibilities for improving emergency response, SAR and accident investigations. 

In the near future, industry can anticipate drones with enhanced autonomy to work in coordinated swarms, learn from past missions and employ advanced object recognition. Fully autonomous drones will include on-demand deployment, emergency alert response, target tracking, obstacle avoidance, indoor flight, AI capabilities, GPS connectivity, voice commands, patrol vehicle integration, advanced threat detection and real-time situational awareness through live feeds.[7] 

The concept of DFR and drones utilized in SAR and accident investigations is no longer a distant dream but a reality reshaping the landscape of public safety. These flying machines have proven to be first responders’ best allies, aiding them in saving lives, conducting efficient accident investigations and navigating challenging rescue missions. As regulations evolve and technology continues to advance, drones will play an even more pivotal role in protecting and defending the public. 

To learn more about how Carahsoft can support your drones technology initiatives, visit our Autonomy and Robotics technology solutions portfolio. 

 

References:

[1] “Chula Vista Police Department Drone Program,” Chula Vista Police Department, https://www.chulavistaca.gov/departments/police-department/programs/uas-drone-program

[2] “Dawn of Drones Podcast,” Dawn Zoldi, https://www.auvsi.org/dawn-drones-episode-81-miriam-foxx-captain-chula-vista-police-department

[3] Credit: Captain Kyle Nordfors, Mountain Rescue Association (MRA) UAS Chairman Weber County Sheriff’s Office (Utah) Captain – Alaska Airlines B737

[4] “Drones For Good: Saving Time And Lives With Faster Crash Scene Reconstruction,” DJI, https://www.dji.com/newsroom/news/drones-for-good-planting-crash-scene-reconstruction-photogrammetry-purdue

[5] “UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS FOR TRAFFIC INCIDENT MANAGEMENT,” U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/tim/docs/EDC-6_Factsheet_TIM_UnmannedAircraft_v2_508.pdf

[6] “Next-Generation TIM: Integrating Technology, Data, and Training,” U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/innovation/everydaycounts/edc_6/nextgen_tim.cfm

[7] “Can AI drones help protect officers in these dangerous times?,” Police 1, https://www.police1.com/officer-survival-guide/articles/can-ai-drones-help-protect-officers-in-these-dangerous-times-Ii9BujqaIeEB0hkZ/

How Agencies Can Go Deeper with Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) brings value in terms of data collection, aggregation and analysis, document processing, claims processing, and delivering better customer service through call center automation—exactly the kinds of functions government agencies need to perform. RPA has delivered a tremendous value to public sector organizations in back office automation, but recently state and local governments are showing interest in using RPA to address challenges intrinsic to their mission and solving larger problems in public sector.

Diving Deeper into RPA’s Capabilities

Federal, state, and local government agencies have rapidly increased their adoption of RPA, particularly recently since the pandemic is requiring employees to work from home and has created significant backlogs. State governments, in particular, have used RPA in areas such as unemployment claims, SNAP program claims, HHS, Department of Motor Vehicles processes, and many other sectors.

RPA adoption follows a predictable pattern. Agencies initially automate back office functions, such as HR, finance, IT services, supply chain, etc. Once staff understand the technology’s time to value and see how easy it is to implement, they often expand its use to include operations, direct customer service and support, claims, and document processing—and eventually expand it into mission automation.

Ultimately staff creates a demand across the agency where multiple functional areas all are starting to roll out their own RPA environments—perhaps under the supervision of the IT department or a Center of Excellence.  At that point, agencies begin to view RPA not as a set of technology tools, but as a true enterprise capability that can drive enterprise scale.  Such agencies want to have an operating model, governance, and plan to prioritize how to get the greatest value from their automation in the shortest period of time.

Government agencies tend to be very judicious and intentional in their vetting and adoption of new technology, but the RPA technology has been quickly adopted at enterprise scale. Procurement processes that usually take 24 to 36 months are sometimes less than a year. Very large federal and state agencies have deployed RPA much more quickly than other technologies—testifying to RPA’s ease of use and simplicity as well as its incredible value.

UiPath Agencies RPA Blog Embedded ImageAI in the Workplace of the Future

Government staff have been trying to figure out how to deploy AI in a meaningful way, allowing employees to work more efficiently and better serve constituents. RPA is the gateway for easy and meaningful AI use. Agencies can build AI and machine learning into an RPA workflow for an image or document, process steps in a claim, implementation of a chat bot, assistance in a call center, etc.  For example, RPA working with AI can read a claim document (even handwritten ones), make sure it’s valid, check it in multiples systems, and ensure it is sent to the right person.

Effective AI requires data collection and aggregation, making decisions with large amounts of data. But the data must be normalized, cleaned, standardized, and error-free—processes RPA can perform. RPA can reach into those datasets, clean the data, aggregate it from various locations, feed it into an AI model, and then take action based on the information that is produced.

Addressing Fraud, Waste and Abuse

AI in conjunction with RPA can save government organizations billions of dollars. Much of today’s waste, fraud, and abuse auditing is done after money has already been sent—since governments are required to pay out claims within a certain amount of time. Agencies do not have enough people to analyze all the payments to ensure accuracy, so the claims are audited post-payment to determine if they are valid. With automation and AI, agencies can examine many more of the claims than would be possible manually. This allows a thorough and proactive process that eliminates fraud before the claims are paid.

RPA for Help Desks

Many agencies are migrating on-premises help desks to cloud-based systems. This is often a manual effort and very time-consuming because agencies must run systems in parallel for longer than they expect, requiring them to pay for maintenance and infrastructure for multiple systems.

However, agencies can realize a greater ROI on their cloud investment by automating much of that transition process. RPA can automate the actual integration between the two systems during the migration while also doing handoffs from the on-prem system to the cloud system; this facilitates internal customer service tickets on the legacy system as they’re migrated to the new system.

A Robot for Every Person

RPA is so intuitive that employees who are closest to the work and who actually process the workflows have the ability to build their own automations: a robot for every person. Once agency staff understand RPA’s ease of use and the time of value, they start to devise new ideas to drive efficiencies. It empowers the workforce and dramatically improves morale.

This technology could be deployed on every desktop within the government, essentially giving every employee a digital assistant that can automate repetitive, mundane tasks. If you can save each employee a few minutes a day and scale that across the entire agency, the savings are hundreds of millions of dollars. “A robot for every person” is a powerful idea that more and more public sector organizations are exploring.

Download our resource to find out why agencies are overwhelmingly using RPA vendor UiPath’s seamless integration as they incorporate digital technologies such as chatbots, ML, and AI.