Canada’s Regina Police Service Traffic Unit receives DJI Phantom 4 UAS

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In Regina, Saskatchewan, the Regina Police Service (RPS) Traffic Unit hopes to soon begin using a new DJI Phantom 4 Pro UAS for a variety of tasks, after the RPS received the unmanned system in early August.

Before the RPS Traffic Unit can use the UAS, Transport Canada must first certify the RPS for UAS use. That process has already started.  

If and when the UAS is eligible to be used, there will be several use cases for it according to Constable Curtis Warnar.

“Say if we were doing a scene here and you had some skid marks or roadway evidence, you’re only seeing one angle versus when you can get up in the air and see the full picture,” Warnar says via Global News.

Warnar expects the UAS to primarily be used for traffic scenarios, but he believes that there are other possibilities for its use outside of those cases.

“Say we might have a firearms call where we’re not comfortable sending our members too close to the scene,” Warnar explains. “So potentially you can put the UAV up and gather some intelligence about the house.”

Currently, only the RPS Traffic Unit is slated to the use the UAS, and a training school is being set up by the RPS to teach officers how to properly operate the UAS, but Warnar adds that some of the members of the Forensic Identification unit will be trained to use the technology for outdoor crime scenes as well.

The RPS reportedly chose the Phantom 4 UAS because it is user friendly, and because of its built in safety features, such as collision avoidance technology, and an automatic, GPS directed “home” command.

Piloted using an iPhone, the UAS will collect and gather evidence by taking high resolution photos and shooting 4K video.