Researchers are hoping that in the near future, with better internal batteries, a micro-UAV will fly longer than 8 minutes, another problem is that GPS is vulnerable; its signals can be blocked by buildings or deliberately jammed. The number of crashes in Afghanistan is a good example. A system is needed so a drone can navigate using a camera paired with pattern recognition software, so they can recognize power lines and even recharge batteries on the fly.
Another problem is that Chicago unlike a dozen other police departments including Miami and Seattle have not applied to the FAA for permits to fly drones. Until FAA rules, which tightly restrict drone flights by private companies and government agencies are changed operators can’t fly UAVs above 400 feet or near airports or other zones with heavy traffic. Hopefully, that will change under a new law, signed by President Obama in 2012 to open American airspace to drones by 2015.
Should private advocates be alarmed that infrared and radio-band sensors used by the military can peer through clouds and foliage and can even–detect people inside buildings? I maintain that after the nihilistic bloodbath of 506 homicides in Chicago in 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) should shut -up and not overly concerned with persistent surveillance or the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution which protects Americans from “unreasonable searches and seizures.” The ACLU should be more concerned about how only 25% of 506 murders were solved in 2012: which translates into 377 killers not prosecuted. Maybe the ability of micro-drones to track multiple vehicles and bodies as they fly around dangerous neighborhoods will drastically cut the homicide rate.
Next time gangbangers see a pigeon perched on a power-line, or a bug on their windowsill, a moth on a window or a fly bzzzzzzz trailing them after shooting an innocent child or citizen, not realizing it could be a surveillance drone doing a dive-by checking for criminal activity. As Satchel Paige once said “You can run but you can’t hide.
FINIS