EENA Report Says: Off- the-shelf Drone Platforms are not Designed for Mission Critical Operations
RPAS will not replace firemen, police officers or helicopter crews; they simply will become integrated into the overall emergency response and disaster relief efforts leading to more informed decisions and better outcomes.
Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), or drones, have created significant opportunities for emergency first responders, as well as important challenges. As a response to the adoption of RPAS by emergency services, in 2015 EENA created a working group on drones that was quickly embraced by the emergency services community and became a network of 125 members.
In April 2016, EENA and DJI entered into a partnership for an in-depth analysis of how emergency services use drone technology with the aim to identify best practices in terms of operational, technical, safety, privacy and legal issues. Four pilot sites were selected for the project, whose teams used RPAS for several months in a variety of operational scenarios.
Selected pilot sites: Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service (UK), Donegal Mountain Rescue Team (Ireland), Greater Copenhagen Fire Department (Denmark) and Reykjavik SAR Team (Iceland).
The key challenges below were identified at an early stage and the participants were challenged to identify best practices over the course of the project:
- Integration of RPAS in Standard Operating Procedure
- Training of teams on the use of RPAS
- Hardware needs and maintenance
- Logistics
- External framework for RPAS use
"What we have realized is that a drone has evolved from being a flying device to a data collection device. Through that it has become a decision making tool, with applications beyond just locating a missing person or getting a simple bird’s eye view." said Romeo Durscher, DJI.
