First Blog Post of the Year
This is Limited Technologies first blog post detailing the progress we hope to make in the future, the progress we are making now, and what we're thinking today. It's also a class grade, so hope we do well.
We are working on creating this project for the following reasons.
Police departments have expressed to us that current tactical drones are large and have limited capability of operating and maneuvering indoors.
The aforementioned problem means that police currently lack sufficient options to use drones for purposes of indoor search and rescue (SAR) or room clearing operations (ISR).
A small, durable robot that can easily be maneuvered indoors could assist police with room clearing and search and rescue operations, allowing officers to have eyes on the scene before entering potentially hostile indoor spaces, increasing officer safety and reducing risk of life.
In searching robot options, we found that a new class of untested unmanned vehicles, called SRR Drones by the Army, is more feasible compared to other robot classes. We ran a flow chart by a professor debating the possible options which lead to our choice. Flow chart attached.
The officers that we spoke with have requested the following features from a tactical drone:
Durable enough to be operable in tactical situations
Operable in Low Light/No light environments (Night Vision)
Thermal Camera Capability
Flight time of 15-30 minutes
Having a video feed that can be seen by multiple officers
Small enough to be operable inside of a Building
1KM signal Range
Challenges will be balancing the tradeoff of a larger battery which can power the drone longer, with the size and weight constraints of a small drone. We will also have to balance the tradeoffs between features such as higher quality cameras and keeping the drone lightweight.
https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/comparison-of-draft-army-short-range-reconnaissance-uas-spec-with-representative-doi-master-uas-requirements.pdf