{"id":25582,"date":"2023-05-15T18:00:01","date_gmt":"2023-05-15T18:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saj.pachecostudios.com?p=25582"},"modified":"2023-05-15T18:04:39","modified_gmt":"2023-05-15T18:04:39","slug":"pearland-pd-expands-dfr-operations-to-include-bvlos-without-visual-observers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/state-news\/texas\/pearland-pd-expands-dfr-operations-to-include-bvlos-without-visual-observers\/%20","title":{"rendered":"Pearland PD Expands DFR Operations to Include BVLOS Without Visual Observers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pearland Police Department<\/a> has been awarded a certificate of authorization (COA) to operate its drone as first responder (DFR) program beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operation, eliminating the need for human visual observers (VOs). This was achieved using Iris Automation\u2019s Casia G ground-based air surveillance system.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The City of Pearland is a rapidly growing city south of\nHouston with a population of 129,600 and 179 sworn police officers. It covers a\nmostly residential area of 49 square miles, and includes major urban facilities\nsuch as hospitals, schools, colleges, and shopping centers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pearland PD is now able to radically improve its DFR program\nand how it responds to emergency calls. Drones can be dispatched immediately,\ncircumventing traffic, and offering an advanced assessment of the incident\nscene and reducing risks to officers. This allows first responders to be \u2018on\nscene\u2019 virtually, in minimum response time, allowing them to observe the scene\nand relay critical information to other responding officers, fire or\nparamedics. These \u2018early eyes on scene\u2019 can be the difference between life and\ndeath, allowing for the appropriate level of response, including reducing the\nover deployment of resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is possible through the use of highly automated drones,\ncentrally managed by a small number of personnel. Operating BVLOS removes the\nrequirement for the operator to be co-located with the drone, potentially\nincreasing the ratio of drones to operators and exponentially improving scale\nand efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In a climate where personnel shortages are impacting first responders across the nation, having a fully BVLOS drone as first responder program greatly enhances resource allocation while maintaining a high level of situational awareness for first responder safety,” said Chad Randall, Assistant Chief of Police, Pearland Police Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The approval for its Drones as First Responder (DFR) program\nrequired the use of Iris Automation\u2019s Casia G system as an alternative means of\ncompliance to the 91.113 \u201csee and avoid\u201d requirement. This is a significant\nachievement in scaling drones for public safety operations and is the first\nPart 91 approval secured using Casia G.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pearland PD Command Center<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPearland PD has been operating Casia G systems since last\nsummer, collecting and analyzing performance data and submitting it to the FAA,\nwhich resulted in this approval,\u201d said Jon Damush, CEO, Iris Automation. \u201cIt\u2019s\na testament to the department\u2019s commitment to fully utilizing drones to provide\nmore efficient services across its region and an important example of how a\nthoughtful CONOP combined our ground-based system mitigates air-collision risk\nenabling BVLOS operations. We\u2019re proud to be a component of Pearland\u2019s safety\ncase and look forward to working with them and other DFR programs to provide\nthese breakthrough capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Werner, director, Drone Responders Public Safety\nAlliance, said that this landmark approval for Pearland PD is a game-changer. \u201cIt\nenables drones as first responders to grow exponentially, helping emergency\nresponders to maximize resources, while making communities across the nation\nsafer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Complying with 14 CFR 91.113 (i.e., \u2018see and avoid\u2019) has\nlong been the bane of the UAS industry. The removal of a pilot from the cockpit\nremoves a layer of risk mitigation from an aviation safety case – the avoidance\nof mid-air collisions. Operators have been forced to explore a variety of\nsolutions including both on-board and off-board technologies and to date, the\nFAA has required the use of human visual observers in any UAS operation to\nmitigate this risk despite humans not being the best solution to this problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 91 is the \u2018general operating rules\u2019 part of 14 CFR that governs a wide range of aviation operations, from private recreational flying to corporate charter and other commercial operations. Public Aircraft Operators, like Pearland PD, operate under 14 CFR 91, as opposed to 14 CFR 107, widely referred to as the \u2018drone rule\u2019. The approval was secured by Pearland by carefully and rigorously developing a concept of operation (CONOP) that leverages technologies to mitigate risks. This includes Iris Automation\u2019s Casia G<\/a> ground-based detect and alert system and DroneSense\u2019s<\/a> situational awareness software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Casia G is a passive, ground-based air surveillance system,\nwhich creates a volume of monitored airspace without the need to integrate any\nhardware onto the drone itself. Using patented computer vision technology,\nCasia G alerts the Remote Pilot in Command (RPIC) to an intruder which presents\na collision risk who then commands the drone to maneuver to safe zones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pearland Police Department has been awarded a certificate of authorization (COA) to operate its drone as first responder (DFR) program beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operation, eliminating the need for human visual observers (VOs). This was achieved using Iris Automation\u2019s Casia G ground-based air surveillance system.\u00c2\u00a0 The City of Pearland is a rapidly growing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,62,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page-slider","category-texas","category-unmanned-systems"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Pearland-Police-Department-2-edit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25582"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25589,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25582\/revisions\/25589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}