Cape Town - The City of Cape Town is aiming to deploy an unmanned aircraft as early as March next year to monitor crime, land occupations, metal theft and fires.
On Friday night, a drone, equipped with a high definition camera, was launched from Rondebosch Common, as part of a test flight to see the mini chopper in action. It was the sixth successive drone to be vetted by the city, and mayoral committee member for Safety and Security JP Smith, who was present for the flight, said the results were “promising”.
The drone, built by Netherlands manufacturer Skycap, was able to remain airborne for almost an hour. Its predecessors only managed to hover for less than half that time, said Smith.
Initially, the test drive was not set to take place in the heart of the Southern Suburbs. Instead, the city hoped to deploy the vehicle in Zeekoevlei and use its night vision to pick up the shapes of the local hippos rummaging in the brushes.
But when they struggled to gain access to the wetland, and later could not launch from Rondevlei, they moved the test to a flat piece of land in Rondebosch.
At the Common, Skycap representatives showed off the Shadow Rotor long endurance quad copter’s GPS mode. The setting is like autopilot. The user is able to input a set of co-ordinates and the drone will fly towards that point, hovering in the air once it reaches its destination.
Smith said heavy winds made flying the drone manually a challenge. In GPS mode, the drone would automatically adjust to changes in direction and quickly right itself.
He said the aim of using drones was to counter the expensive costs of renting a helicopter every time the city needed aerial surveillance. In comparison to the frequent rentals, the acquisition of a single drone (which could cost anywhere between R60 000 to R600 000) would be more cost-effective.
While all the interested departments would be expected to chip in for the cost of the drone, it would be kept with the city’s photographer. However, the deployment of drones as part of the city’s operations is far from a done deal.
In South Africa, despite widespread use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in films, anti-poaching operations and recreational use (there are countless videos of people strapping tiny cameras on to their remote-controlled helicopters), it is still technically illegal to fly a drone.
The South African Civil Aviation Authority said it would be addressing the absence of regulations in regards to “Unmanned Aircraft Systems” by March next year.
Smith said if the regulations were too strict, the city would ditch the project.
The use of UAVs is a controversial topic in many countries. In the US, where domestic drones are widely used by law enforcement units for public surveillance, groups have been founded to push for stricter regulation on their deployment.
The American Civil Liberties Union recommended on its website that: “Drones should be deployed by law enforcement only with a warrant, in an emergency, or when there are specific and articulable grounds to believe that the drone will collect evidence relating to a specific criminal act.”
Other recommendations included allowing for open audits into the deployment of domestic drones and that the usage policy of UAVs should be decided by public representatives. These groups fear widespread usage of drones will infringe on privacy.
The ethics of UAVs is something which Skycap mentions on its website. The company wrote that their copters will never carry weapons or ammunition, be used for operations that cause harm to the environment or provide services to regimes blacklisted for such systems by either European or American governments.
This weekend, the company travelled to the Kruger National Park where it handed over a drone to be used as part of anti-poaching operations. On its Facebook page, Skycap wrote that they had been training two local rangers to fly the UAV.