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View Full Version : Victoria Police to use drones


mickjoebill
19th Sep 2018, 06:31
In Australia, Victoria Police announce plans to use drones to monitor large areas during public events.
Will rollout in two years.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-19/victoria-police-new-anti-terrorism-bid/10280484


According to the media, AI wil be used to evaluate the crowd to find patterns in movement that can indicate unusual behaviour.
It is described as an anti terrorism tool.
From an elevated position I observed several drones in use during last New Year’s Eve in Melbourne, presumably in use by Govt as one of them manoeuvred down a street at around 150ft:)

Can see the practicality to gain a view of a wide area, but I’m puzzled about their viability in conjunction with AI to evaluate movement of an individual, as that would require holding in a set position where the longer the duration of the hover, the smarter the AI becomes. It’s a hard task for an orbiting drone to maintrain track of thousands of targets.

May be a outdated view, but the longer the endurance the more effective the AI.
Perhaps the endurance issue will be solved by a tether? Or is the AI a sales pitch where only irregular behaviour is tracked, not regular behaviour!

Lots of trees in Melbourne to lurk under to hide from a drone. We all know that evaluating pedestrians is best achieved with the camera looking vertically, so a decent elevation is required.
The spokesperson claimed it could identify a rucksack was left in a crowd at the Myer Music Bowl (an open stage with a capacity of 10,000).

Will be interesting to see the spec and optimal operating height for AI to function.

Mjb

Bell_ringer
19th Sep 2018, 07:09
There is already smart video analysis software that does this, it has been used for quite some time to look for hostile behaviour around buildings and military camps in those unfriendly countries.
Footage from a drone would just be another feed.
It is quite easy to isolate movements that go against the flow, though that does not mean it is going to be illegal activity but it helps to point out suspect behaviour and get feet on the street to check.
More and more camera coverage seems to be the future, how the privacy advocates will feel about that is a different matter entirely.

aa777888
19th Sep 2018, 21:00
UAV hover with centimeter level precision is trivial and a regular feature of high end UAVs. Recently I was writing some UAS requirements and one can now purchase, off the shelf, mm level survey accuracy, no fuss, no muss.

Similarly, long duration tethered UAV systems are available off the shelf, all pre-engineered, from a multitude of sources. Simple Google "tethered drone".

It's not too long from now when public safety services will have a fleet of UAV trucks with both tethered and un-tethered UAVs for deployment to both emergent situations and scheduled events.

Already seeing UAV power line inspection in my local area.

minigundiplomat
19th Sep 2018, 22:39
As Victoria Police seem to have a policy of watching crime, rather than preventing crime, a drone sounds like the ideal answer. At least next time the Sudanese smash the place up, they can get $25 on you've been framed.

mickjoebill
20th Sep 2018, 05:18
On the outskirts of Melbourne in the past month, criminals are using drones too

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155381610086601&set=a.414342741600&type=3