The Greater Chennai City Police (GCP) unveiled the 'Police Drone Unit' on Thursday, June 29, 2023, for aerial surveillance over large regions and rapid identification of criminal activity. C. Sylendra Babu, Director General of Police (DGP) and Chief of Police Force, inaugurated the newly established special unit on Besant Avenue in Adyar. The unit is housed in a two-story facility and is staffed by more than 20 professional police officers. The drones are now operating around Marina and Elliots beaches. "It is a significant milestone for the Tamil Nadu Police," Mr. Babu added. This is the country's first initiative of its sort. The facility was built at a cost of 3.6 crore."
There are nine drones available in this Drone Police Unit, divided into three categories: quick response surveillance drones, heavy lift multirotor Drones, and long range survey wing planes, all of which are equipped with built-in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and can be operated up to a distance of 5-10 kilometres from the ground station.
"It is a manpower multiplier," said Chennai Police Commissioner Shankar Jiwal. For example, if we want to police Marina or Elliot's beaches at 10 p.m., we must deploy soldiers equipped with lights. Criminals may flee if they see the lights. There are no such issues with drones. Because the drone has a thermal object imaging capability, it will detect whether any suspect is carrying a knife or other things in his body. We may also see the suspicious person's profile. We may dispatch our guys and take immediate action based on intelligence from the drones."
"The drones will be used to monitor movements in remote locations and the gathering of anti-social elements at specific times." During the night, drones may be used to read vehicle licence plates. Also, because face recognition software is linked, we can simply identify and track down crooks in the crowd. Furthermore, the drones would be useful in crowd management planning," he stated. "Even at night, the Heavy Lift Drone equipped with thermal cameras can detect and rescue people caught in the sea waves by deploying life jackets." We chose 20 police officers and taught them to fly these three types of drones. "Our personnel will be supported by the vendor for another year," stated M.R. Sibi Chakravarthi, Joint Commissioner of Police, South.
