In a first, Chennai city police to have exclusive drone unit

According to a GO, the unit will have three types of drones- a quick response special payload drone, long range surveillance drone and lifeguard drone.

The unit will have two components - the drones and a well-furnished container office with a high rise platform with drone take-off and landing pad with all side glass walls and automatic roof, control units, monitors, power backups, furniture, landscaping systems, high-end servers, connectivity and so on.

The office will likely be a temporary structure fabricated using container cabins with ground floor to be used as control room and upper deck for drone operation.

A total of nine drones, six quick response drones, two long range surveillance drones and one lifeguard drone would be purchased for Rs 3 crore and the remaining Rs 60 lakh would be spent on the office. Police have suggested that the drones might be initially used over Marina beach or at Elliots beach or Pondy bazaar.

The quick-response special payload drone will be multi-rotor capable of interchangeable payloads, and will have a HD camera with thermal/night vision. It will be capable of live stream video, and will also have a 100-gram loudspeaker for public announcements. The 2.5 kg drone, has a 2 km continuous flying range and 30 minutes continuous flight time.

The long range surveillance drone is a hybrid drone (quadcopter and wing plane) to make vertical takeoff and landing. It will have 100 minutes of continuous flight time, 30 kms continuous flying range with a gross weight of 5 kg. The lifeguard drone is high powered and is capable of heavy lifting with 15 minutes of continuous flight time, one km flying range with a gross weight of 12 kgs.