Chennai City police building on drone capabilities, to get own unit in two months

Chennai, April 1 (IANS) The Chennai City police will have a new drone unit commissioned in two months' time.

Tamil Nadu state government has sanctioned an amount of Rs 3.6 crore in the budget for the drone unit of the City police.

Chennai City police commissioner Shankar Jiwal while speaking to IANS said: "The drone unit will be the eye of the police in the sky. We have asked a few startups in the state to build a dozen indigenous drones according to our specifications."

He also said that the drone units would commence functioning within two months.

The City police, according to officers who are coordinating with the technical team, will have three types of drones. The first will weigh 2 kgs and will fly a distance of 5 km. These will be used for surveillance along the Adayar and Cooum river beds, parks, and also remote parts of the city.

The second one is a long-range drone that can fly up to 15 km and weigh only 2 kg while the third one is a delivery drone with a range of 2 km and can carry goods up to 10 kg.

The delivery drones will be able to carry floats, life jackets, and buoys and will have night vision cameras and thermal cameras. These drones are used to fly out buoys, life jackets and carry floats to people who are stuck in the sea during some emergency.

The Control rooms for these drones will be set up in used shipping containers and will be placed at Marina Beach, T-Nagar, and other areas from where there is easy assess to all parts of the city.

A senior scientist working on the project, said: "There will be temporary drone pad above every mobile office that is made out of used containers. Each container will have computers and a dedicated team monitoring the drone feeds."

He said that each container will have uninterrupted power supply and dedicated internet connectivity. The container can be transported from one place to another to help monitor the drones during the VVIP visits that the city would be subjected to.

The drones that are being designed for the Chennai city police will have cameras equipped with Face Recognition Software (FRS) that are effective from a height of 30 to 50 feet.

The technical team told IANS that these drones will have infra-red and thermal cameras that can spot people who are swept out to the sea even in darkness.

Chennai City Police Assistant Commissioner, Narenthranathan Nayar who is in charge of the project, said: "FRS is a valuable asset and police can easily track and identify the culprits and nab them at busy temple festivals and other places where there is a large crowd."

During the Painguni festival at Kapaleeswara Temple, Mylapore a few drones were tested for flying and police said that only three cases of chain snatching took place which generally was much higher touching more than 200 cases. The presence of drones above the temple at 50 to 60 feet height has helped nab several chain snatchers and they could not escape.