A Brave New Sky: Building 'Public Trust' in Tomorrow’s 'Public Safety'
In today's rapidly evolving unmanned aircraft and systems technological landscape, drones are emerging as the transformative innovation edge for Public Safety.
As these new drones become more ubiquitous, and they seamlessly integrate into the fabric of our daily lives, the urgency for validated safety and performance data to mitigate operational risk, and increase public trust, intensifies.
Why Public 'Trust' matters in Public 'Safety'
Public trust is a cornerstone for the successful implementation of new technologies within any 'use case'. This is especially true for drones, largely due to their proximity to civilians, crucial events, and infrastructure. Earning the public's trust, hinges on the mitigation of 'operational risk' that has been validated, and the operations assurance of both reliable and safe missions.
Photography by Jay Shears
The crucial need for Public Safety to mitigate 'Operational Risk' is to realize 'Public Trust'
Imagine the perception created by a drone, that is monitoring a public gathering (in variable wind and weather conditions), that begins to exhibit erratic behavior. Beyond the immediate operational risk, such incidents tarnish the reputation of the entire drone industry and can deeply erode public trust.
Hence, the mitigation and validation of operational risk isn't just about operational efficiency. It's also about understanding the behavior and reliability of unmanned aircraft (with their systems) in real world variable flight and weather conditions; using real 'validated' behavior data that has been captured in a trusted repeatable testing environment.
Capturing trusted repeatable data within a testing environment, that can emulate real wind and weather ensures that captured validated data from real flight and weather conditions can serve as public trust-builders.
When the public realizes that drones are subjected to meticulous testing, based on real-world repeatable and validated data, public trust is most likely to improve. Also, educating the public about the behavior of unmanned aircraft in these variable conditions, with accompanying repeatable supporting data will help to humanize these "hovering Help-icopters" amidst public perception.
Ensuring 'Public Trust' amidst 'Public Safety' use cases
Drones are making inroads into diverse public safety arenas such as:
Law Enforcement Hostage Situations - Drones provide a safer and broader situational awareness, but any loss of signal, malfunction or failsafe procedure due to the absence of behavioral data, can hamper decision-making, and potentially put lives at risk.
Photography by Jay Shears
Search and Rescue in Extreme Terrains - Unmanned Aircraft offer unmatched advantages in scouting inaccessible terrains or 'exclusion zones'. However, their AI and related software systems must learn the flight behavior in these real world conditions, to avoid unpredictable disruptions as a result of variable environmental challenges. Validated data, captured with real environmental control levers, within a repeatable flight activity environment, can ensure that search and rescue operations can locate the missing or stranded, and mitigate most disruptions.
Photography by Jay Shears
Photography by Jay Shears
Photography by Jay Shears
Photography by Jay Shears
Flood Monitoring and Victim Location - Drones provide a bird's-eye situational view of "hot zones". To be effective, they need resistance against weather events, inclusive of water and humid conditions, to ensure rapid victim location and damage assessment.
Photography by Jay Shears
Wildfire Surveillance - Firefighters rely on drones to gain situational awareness during wildfire spread, inclusive of: Rate of Spread (ROS), Fire Front, Spotting, Fire Intensity, Flame Length, Crown Fires, Surface Fires, Fire Perimeter, Firebreak and Containment. Drones operating near wildfires must endure high temperatures and other environmental challenges such as 'fire induced weather'.
Photography by Jay Shears
Photography by Jay Shears
Unmanned aircraft and their related systems, are at the very edge of reshaping the public safety paradigm. As they influence and evolve into this new ubiquitous and autonomous Public Safety ecosystem, they also carry the weight of our trust. Their increasing ubiquity, however, amplifies the need for rigorous environmental testing and validation. The pivotal and very public moments that define them, hinge upon the reliability and integrity of the mission that they serve. As we harness the power of these unmanned 'Hovering Help-icopters,' establishing foundational success pillars of public trust and safety are imperative .
