WATCH: How Drones Are Saving Lives in Rural America; Government Technology, August 19, 2024

Nikki Davidson , Government Technology; WATCH: How Drones Are Saving Lives in Rural America

"Until recently, deputies in rural Manitowoc County, Wis., faced a challenge: responding to calls with limited visibility and resources. Traditional policing methods often left them at a disadvantage in vast, wooded areas. 

In June 2022, the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office embarked on a mission to integrate unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into their law enforcement operations to give them an eye in the sky. Two lieutenants, Travis Aleff and Kyle Stotzheim, were tasked with spearheading the initiative, working “non-stop” for half a year to establish a fully operational drone team with 13 FAA-certified pilots.

Initially there were a lot of questions about the program’s cost-effectiveness and whether the investment in drones would yield tangible benefits...

To understand the real-world impact of drones in law enforcement, we requested examples from the sheriff’s office, complete with video footage. They provided three compelling cases, each demonstrating a different facet of how UAVs can revolutionize police work and enhance public safety.

DRONES AS A LIFELINE: ENHANCING MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS RESPONSE

One example highlights the potential of drones to aid in mental health crisis response. The Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office received a call concerning a suicidal, armed individual who intended to harm themselves in a densely wooded county park. Watch the video below to see how the UAV was used as a tool to defuse and safely resolve the situation."

Eyes in the sky: why drones are ‘beyond effective’ for animal rights campaigners around the world; The Guardian, March 26, 2024

Laura Trethewey, The Guardian ; Eyes in the sky: why drones are ‘beyond effective’ for animal rights campaigners around the world

"Over the past decade, drones have become irreplaceable tools in activist and conservation circles. In 2013, the animal rights group Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) launched a drone campaign tracking illegal bowhunting in Massachusetts.

Since then, drones have been used to record factory farm pollution in the American midwest, sea lice outbreaks in Icelandic salmon pens, and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Drones are popular because they’re relatively cheap, easy to use and extend a person’s range in difficult or inaccessible terrain. They also provide a bird’s-eye view of the scale of an issue, such as an oil spill or illegal logging...

In some cases, the drones capture the secret lives of animals hidden from view, such as Romeo the manatee in Miami...

“Conservation can be a very dangerous occupation to be in and there are more environmentalists killed every year,” says Ager. “Drones are a perfect way to study something without putting yourself in harm’s way and then decide whether it’s worth the risk.”"

The robots are coming. And that’s a good thing.; MIT Technology Review, March 5, 2024

 

• Daniela Rusarchive page
•  and Gregory Monearchive page

, MIT Technology Review; The robots are coming. And that’s a good thing.

"In this excerpt from the new book, The Heart and the Chip: Our Bright Future with Robots, CSAIL Director Daniela Rus explores how robots can extend the reach of human capabilities...

These examples of how we can pair the heart with the chip to extend our perceptual reach range from the whimsical to the profound. And the potential for other applications is vast. Environmental and government organizations tasked with protecting our landscapes could dispatch eyes to autonomously monitor land for illegal deforestation without putting people at risk. Remote workers could use robots to extend their hands into dangerous environments, manipulating or moving objects at hazardous nuclear sites. Scientists could peek or listen into the secret lives of the many amazing species on this planet. Or we could harness our efforts to find a way to remotely experience Paris or Tokyo or Tangier. The possibilities are endless and endlessly exciting. We just need effort, ingenuity, strategy, and the most precious resource of all.

No, not funding, although that is helpful.

We need time."

Much Abuzz About Drones: Drones and Forest Management; American Bar Association (ABA), April 20, 2023

Elliad Dagan, American Bar Association (ABA) ; Much Abuzz About Drones: Drones and Forest Management

"Despite these on-paper benefits, widespread use of drones in forest management might bring myriad new issues. For example, access to previously inaccessible areas will provide more complete data, but it will also disturb what little habitat has managed to avoid human interference. "

War ethics: Are drones in Ukraine a step toward robots that kill?; The Christian Science Monitor, April 28, 2022

  Anna Mulrine Grobe, The Christian Science Monitor; War ethics: Are drones in Ukraine a step toward robots that kill?

"Amid the bewildering array of brutality on and off the battlefields of Ukraine, military ethicists have been keeping a close eye on whether the war could also become a proving ground for drones that use artificial intelligence to decide whom to hurt."

Drones get blood to patients faster—and reduce waste; The University of British Columbia, March 21, 2022

The University of British Columbia; Drones get blood to patients faster—and reduce waste

"Prompt blood delivery can be lifesaving for people who need transfusions for emergencies such as postpartum hemorrhage, severe malaria, or traumatic injuries. However, only a few facilities in Rwanda are able to collect and store blood, posing a serious risk for people who don’t live near distribution centers...

In 2016, Rwanda became the first African country to integrate drone deliveries into its healthcare system. The project is a partnership between the Government of Rwanda and California-based robotics company Zipline Inc.

Currently, the program is focused mainly on blood deliveries. However, the project has started to expand the deliveries of vaccines and essential medicines for the treatment of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, malaria, and tuberculosis.

While most studies to this point have focused on feasibility, the new paper from Nisingizwe and her team is one of the first to measure actual outcomes. Next, the researchers want to determine whether drone delivery improves health outcomes and is ultimately cost-effective, and explore its potential for transporting other perishable health products and medicines.

“Drone technology has tremendous potential to improve access to care for people living in rural and remote areas, not just in Rwanda, but all around the world,” said Dr. Michael Law, a professor in UBC’s Centre for Health Services and Policy Research and senior author on the study.

Drone delivery is being explored as a potential healthcare solution in other countries, including in British Columbia, where a UBC-led study is exploring the feasibility of using drones to transport medical supplies between Stellat’en First Nation and the Village of Fraser Lake."

Panel: Drone warfare is increasingly sophisticated, deadly; Cornell Chronicle, March 17, 2022

 Jim Hanchett , Cornell Chronicle ; Panel: Drone warfare is increasingly sophisticated, deadly

"“We’re here to make sense of this evolving technology,” said panel moderator Sarah Kreps, the John L. Wetherill Professor of Government in the College of Arts and Sciences and a member of the faculty in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.

While the U.S. has used drones for the targeted killing of terrorists, their use by other entities around the world is on the rise.

“Drones can aid, they can watch, and they can kill,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Paul Lushenko, a General Andrew Jackson Goodpaster Scholar at Cornell and a doctoral student in the field of international relations."

The Ethics of Wildlife Photography: Drones Meet Animals; Fstoppers, August 17, 2020

Mark Dunsmuir, Fstoppers; The Ethics of Wildlife Photography: Drones Meet Animals

"Do photographers have any ethical obligations towards wildlife? Drones can cause significant damage to wildlife and should be used with caution, not abandon."

The Drones Were Ready for This Moment; The New York Times, May 23, 2020

Alex Williams, The New York Times; The Drones Were Ready for This Moment

"Coronavirus has been devastating to humans, but may well prove a decisive step toward a long-prophesied Drone Age, when aerial robots begin to shed their Orwellian image as tools of war and surveillance and become a common feature of daily life, serving as helpers and, perhaps soon, companions.

“Robots are so often cast as the bad guys,” said Daniel H. Wilson, a former roboticist and the author of the 2011 science fiction novel “Robopocalypse.” “But what’s happening now is weirdly utopic, as opposed to dystopic. Robots are designed to solve problems that are dull, dirty and dangerous, and now we have a sudden global emergency in which the machines we’re used to fearing are uniquely well suited to swoop in and save the day.”"

Artificial Intelligence Moving to Battlefield as Ethics Weighed; Bloomberg Government, October 10, 2019

Travis J. Tritten, Bloomberg Government; Artificial Intelligence Moving to Battlefield as Ethics Weighed

"The Pentagon, taking the next big step of deploying artificial intelligence to aid troops and help select battlefield targets, must settle lingering ethical concerns about using the technology for waging war...

Ethical uses of the technology could include the development of landmines, similar to the Claymore mines used by the U.S. in Vietnam, that can distinguish between adults carrying weapons and children, the nonprofit research group the Mitre Corp. told the defense board at a public hearing at Carnegie Mellon University in March.

Shanahan’s center first employed the technology to help fight wildfires in California and elsewhere and has discussed humanitarian relief uses in the Pacific with Japan and Singapore. Much of the potential for military artificial intelligence lies outside direct battlefield operations in areas such as logistics and accounting."

Drones and big data: the next frontier in the fight against wildlife extinction; The Guardian, February 18, 2019

Anthea Lipsett, The Guardian; Drones and big data: the next frontier in the fight against wildlife extinction

"Yet it’s not more widely used because few researchers have the skills to use this type of technology. In biology, where many people are starting to use drones, few can code an algorithm specifically for their conservation or research problem, Wich says. “There’s a lot that needs to be done to bridge those two worlds and to make the AI more user-friendly so that people who can’t code can still use the technology.”

The solutions are more support from tech companies, better teaching in universities to help students overcome their fears of coding, and finding ways to link technologies together in an internet-of-things concept where all the different sensors, including GPS, drones, cameras and sensors, work together."

Drones unleashed against invasive rats in the Galápagos; Nature, January 24, 2019

Emma Marris, Nature; Drones unleashed against invasive rats in the Galápagos

"One advantage of using drones, Morley says, is that it reduces the need to cut trails through a forest to lay poison baits or traps. He is still working on ways to use the drones to monitor whether projects are successful, playing with acoustic, optical or other sensors that the drones could drop near the poison.

Using drones to kill could also change how conservation scientists view such work, Morley says, comparing the approach to modern warfare. “You used to be able to see your opponent. Now, you just a press a button and you fire a missile,” he says. “You become a little bit detached from the reality that you have killed something or somebody over there.”

That emotional distance could be seen as a benefit of the technology, or as a problem, says Chelsea Batavia, a scholar of conservation ethics at Oregon State University in Corvallis. She feels that people who kill animals for conservation should allow themselves to feel the moral weight of their actions, and even grieve. “Have a conversation about what you are doing and talk through that as a group,” she advises. “Let the impact of what you are doing hit you.”"

Drone Scare Near New York City Shows Hazard Posed to Air Travel; The New York Times, January 23, 2019

Patrick McGeehan and Cade Metz, The New York Times; Drone Scare Near New York City Shows Hazard Posed to Air Travel

"The disruption was all the more alarming because it came just one month after reported drone sightings caused the shutdown of Gatwick Airport in London, one of the busiest in Europe.

The upheaval at Newark illustrated how vulnerable the air-travel system is to the proliferation of inexpensive drones that can weigh as much as 50 pounds and are capable of flying high and fast enough to get in the path of commercial jets, experts on aviation safety and drone technology said. It also raised questions about whether airports are prepared enough to identify drones and prevent them from paralyzing travel and leaving passengers stranded.

“This is a really disturbing trend,” said John Halinski, former deputy administrator of the federal Transportation Security Administration. “It is a real problem because drones are multiplying every day. They really pose a threat in a number of ways to civil aviation.”"

'One of the boys': lost narwhal finds new home with band of beluga whales; The Guardian, September 13, 2018

Greg Mercer, The Guardian; 'One of the boys': lost narwhal finds new home with band of beluga whales

[Kip Currier: Check out the fascinating video clip in this article too. Another example of how drones are being utilized for scientific research, such as wildlife monitoring and conservation, and yielding intriguing information and insights.]

"Whale researchers in Quebec’s St Lawrence River are celebrating a remarkable discovery: a juvenile narwhal far from its arctic home, that appears to have been adopted by a band of beluga whales.

The narwhal, more than 1,000km outside its typical range, was filmed by a drone swimming and playing with dozens of belugas that were treating it as one of their own."

With Closed-Circuit TV, Satellites And Phones, Millions Of Cameras Are Watching; Fresh Air, NPR, February 8, 2018

Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR; With Closed-Circuit TV, Satellites And Phones, Millions Of Cameras Are Watching

""Journalist Robert Draper writes in National Geographic that the proliferation of cameras focused on the public has led "to the point where we're expecting to be voyeur and exhibitionist 24/7."

"TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest Robert Draper says one of the greatest threats to our democracy is gerrymandering, in which the party in power in a state redraws the map of election districts to give the advantage to that party's candidates. Since districts are redrawn only every 10 years following the census, gerrymandering can almost guarantee that the majority party will stay in power. There are a couple of gerrymandering cases currently before the Supreme Court. Draper has reported on gerrymandering, and we'll talk about that a little later.

First, we're going to talk about his new article "They Are Watching You - And Everything Else On The Planet" published in this month's National Geographic. It's about state-of-the-art surveillance from closed-circuit TV to drones and satellites and the questions these surveillance technologies raise about privacy. As part of his research, he spent time in surveillance control rooms in London. And he went to a tech company in San Francisco whose mission is to image the entire Earth every day. Draper is a contributing writer for National Geographic and a writer at large for The New York Times Magazine.

Robert Draper, welcome back to FRESH AIR. So let's start with surveillance. Why did you choose England as the place to report on surveillance?"

High Above, Drones Keep Watchful Eyes on Wildlife in Africa; New York Times, March 13, 2017

Rachel Nuwer, New York Times; 

High Above, Drones Keep Watchful Eyes on Wildlife in Africa

"Perhaps the biggest challenge is that conservationists do not know how to most effectively put anti-poaching drones to use, because there have been no rigorous long-term evaluations.

South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research conducted a two-month trial with U.D.S. and concluded that the technology is “a remarkable support tool,” but officials have yet to release the data supporting those findings.

Most evidence supporting drones is anecdotal: Mr. Coetzee said he has seen a significant reduction in park incursions when and where drones fly, but added that other factors could have been at play. Drones may deter trespassers, he said, but they may simply go elsewhere in the reserve.

W.W.F. plans to tease out the answers to these questions by evaluating the drones’ effectiveness against poachers here in Liwonde."

Getting a Drone as a Gift? Check Your Insurance; New York Times, 12/14/16

Ann Carrns, New York Times; 

Getting a Drone as a Gift? Check Your Insurance:

[Kip Currier: Amazon is getting buzz this week with widely-reported coverage of the ever-experimenting online retailer's 2016 patent for floating warehouse blimps--or in Amazon's own words "airborne fulfillment centers (AFCs)". AFCs would, in theory, serve as "motherships" for worker bee drones to transport purchased goods directly to Amazon customers.

Joanne Lipman, chief content officer for Gannett, predicts that though some crystal ball gazers declared 2016 as the year drones would take off and be the new "it" thing, 2017 will be "The Year of the Drone, Really".

Earlier this month I did a very informative American Bar Association (ABA) Continuing Legal Education (CLE) webinar, "U.S. Drone Law: Current Status, Future Direction", through the ABA Intellectual Property Law section. A panel of practitioners with drone expertise highlighted key cases (e.g. the so-called "Drone Slayer" case), current legal issues, and liability concerns for emerging drone technologies. (Aside: in addition to legal issues, drones implicate a whole slew of information ethics issues; most notably, privacy.)

The article excerpted below sheds useful light on insurance issues regarding drone ownership and usage, something most of us probably have not considered, but absolutely should know more about. Especially considering how many people gifted and received drones as holiday gifts this year! (See Drone sales soaring this Christmas, capping a record year for the industry)]

"MANY people will receive drones as gifts this holiday season. But before heading to the nearest field to fly the devices, recipients may want to check their insurance coverage.

“I’m sure there will be a lot of drones given as Christmas gifts, and we’ll start to see more drone-related claims,” said Chris Hackett, the senior director for personal lines at the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, an industry group."

Dilbert, 7/2/16

Scott Adams; Dilbert:

Mom Drone