Police aerial drones in Australia.

In some parts of the world, drones are already being used as the new eyes in the sky.

Imagine an emergency situation in a small town where the first aerial response does not come from a manned helicopter, but from a drone that automatically takes off from the roof of a police station and is piloted by an operator located almost 600 km away.

That is exactly the experiment currently being tested in Australia, where the New South Wales Police Force has launched a project called Polir Ruralo, designed to improve response times in rural areas and small towns.

The testing ground is the town of Morants, located 600 km northwest of Sydney, where two drones were installed on the roof of the local police station. They are housed in an automated station capable of opening, launching the aircraft, accompanying the mission, landing and recharging the battery, all without human intervention on site. The most impressive thing is the control. The drones are operated by certified pilots who are located in an operations centre in Sydney, hundreds of kilometres away.

From this centre, operators receive live video feeds from the aircraft and can follow incidents in real time. At the same time, police officers on the streets receive exactly the same images, creating a kind of shared aerial view of the operation. According to the Australian police, this is the first time in the country that police drones are being operated entirely remotely, with no pilot present at the launch site.

The equipment used consists of DJI Matrix 4D drones, equipped with high-resolution cameras and advanced imaging systems. They can be activated within minutes when an incident occurs. During a robbery, for example, the aircraft can fly over the area and provide a complete overview of the situation to police officers on the ground.

This resource has also been used to track stolen vehicles, allowing the police to follow the movements of suspects from the air, thus often avoiding high-speed chases that pose risks to both the police and the population.

Today it is a drone, and in the near future, will the skies above cities be filled with electronic eyes observing everything in real time? The answer seems pretty obvious, right?