Mumbai cops to get drones for city surveillance

The Mumbai police will soon be equipped to keep a droning eye on the city. The state government appointed Quidich Innovation Lab (QIL) four months ago to make and supply drones to the cops. The planning process to roll out the devices for surveillance began a few days ago. Once the drones are ready to use, experts from QIL will train police in handling the devices, which the cops will use during important rallies, gatherings and festivals.

QIL is currently providing drones for the ongoing T20 at nine venues. They were also recently appointed by the police to help in the search for murdered salon executive Kirti Vyas's body. For the surveillance, the company was appointed four months ago by the state government after they planned to adapt drones to monitoring important events in the city.

The company was appointed four months ago by the state government after they planned to adapt drones to monitoring important events in the city. Representational Image

Make and train
Explaining how the team would work with the police, Vignesh Santhanam, chief marketing officer of Quidich Innovation Lab told mid-day, "We are going to make drones as per the requirement of the state government. We won't use Chinese drones. We will not only make the drones, but also have our expert pilots train the police to use them. Once their training is complete, we will hand over all the equipment to them."

Prior to this, the company has also worked with other state governments. "We had given six drones to the Rajasthan police, who use them for important events. Initially, one of our men was appointed with their team and now the cops have also been trained to operate the drone cameras," he added.

The police deployed drones to search for Kirti Vyas's body in the marshes of Wadala

SOS for women
In Hackadrone 2018, a team from the company, led by IIT-Bombay alum Siddharth Chinoy, built a comprehensive drone powered system to amplify security measures for women's safety. Santhanam said, "Quidich conceptualized an SoS system to help women in distress, wherein drone systems could be activated in the tap of a button.

Once triggered, the autonomous system would travel to ground zero, track the assailant. The overall architecture can be further extrapolated to general law and order situations where police or other security agencies could deploy autonomous drones to cover impacted areas."

In February, QIL also help the Uttar Pradesh forest department nab a man-eating tiger in the town of Pilibhit. A team of two pilots from QIL armed with specialised cameras and drones helped in the aerial search for the tiger, ensuring it could be trapped even if it escaped the safe zone. Eventually, the forest department officials managed tranquilise the tiger.

Also Read: Meet Mumbai's Youngsters Who Fiddle With New Obsession - Drones

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