By Lisa Parent

New Drone Deployment Program takes flight

Sep 27, 2023 | 5:25 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The Medicine Hat Police Service (MHPS) and Medicine Hat College Center of Innovation (C4i) are launching their new Drone Deployment Program. The overall objective of this partnership is to determine which police incidents warrant deploying a drone and how to optimize drone usage for maximum effectiveness.

The Police Service has been using remote-controlled drones for select calls since 2020.

Staff Sergeant Chad Holt says they’ve used drones for things such as suspect searches and looking for missing people.

He adds, “we’ve begun using them for explosive device calls, we can have the drone move in and provide a good scan of the area without sending a person in or the robot.”

IN THE COMMUNITY

Medicine Hat's Mustard Seed adding new shelter spaces at Alberta government's request

4h ago

HOLIDAYS

Medicine Hat Kiwanis hosting Christmas dinner, applications due Friday

6h ago

IN THE COMMUNITY

'Compassionate Friends' offer peer support for bereaved in Medicine Hat

22h ago

Since starting in 2020, Holt says MHPS has been dispatching about two to three drones a month. The goal is to start using them more, by creating a new dispatch system and hiring more drone pilots. This led to the MHPS collaboration with C4i.

“In partnership with the Center for Innovation, they’ve donated money so we can actually design a dedicated drone unit,” says Holt. “So we take a traditional police unit that we have out on the street, create some compartments and some unique pieces of equipment inside it that will allow for a faster deployment. So that drone doesn’t have to be stored away and locked away in a case.”

Holt says the old drone setup took five minutes or more to deploy after reaching the location of a call, something they are hoping to reduce with the new system.

“Two or three minutes is a big deal when it comes to a missing person, a fleeing suspect, something where minutes really count,” says Holt.

Loreto Mattioni is the research coordinator for C4i. She says they will start conducting police interviews and analyze data on the new drone deployment system over the next year.

“What we want to aim (for) with this project is to get insight about the positive impact and the benefit of using drones in police operations,” Mattioni says. “We are very keen on these kinds of projects that link social issues as public safety and security with innovation and technology.”

Over the past three years of operation with the old vehicle deployment system, Holt has already seen the drones as beneficial.

“They’ve really enhanced officer safety and public safety. We’ve utilized them, not only for searches, but calls such where you might have a person, say, in a large wooded area,” says Holt.

The new drone deployment vehicle is already on the road and active.