AeroX Partners with Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office to launch North Carolina’s first drone-based first responder service

Forsyth Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office (FSCO) has launched North Carolina’s first Drones as First Respon­ders (DFR) pro­gramme, which allows the drone oper­a­tor to lis­ten to live 911 calls and deploy a drone to the scene if nec­es­sary to stream live video footage before deputies arrive.

The drones can pro­vide crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion that can sig­nif­i­cant­ly change the out­come of the response. DFR have been proven to reduce response times, increase res­i­dent and offi­cer safe­ty, and pro­vide crit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness for respon­ders and callers.

Forsyth County’s DFR pro­gram is being pilot­ed in the Vil­lage of Clem­mons due to its pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty, mod­er­ate call vol­ume and enthu­si­as­tic sup­port from Clem­mons Vil­lage Coun­cil.

The pro­gramme will oper­ate first with­in a one-mile radius with the goal of expand­ing soon. FSCO and AeroX have applied to the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion for approval to oper­ate the first-respon­der drones to fly beyond the pilot’s line of sight, which would allow the pro­gram to oper­ate across a wider area.

Forsyth Coun­ty Sher­iff Bob­by Kim­brough said: “We are embrac­ing this impor­tant new tech­nol­o­gy and deploy­ing it in this inno­v­a­tive way to increase safe­ty and improve law enforce­ment in our com­mu­ni­ty, pro­vid­ing a mod­el for how oth­er com­mu­ni­ties across our state and nation can use drones to trans­form pub­lic safe­ty.

AeroX pres­i­dent Basil Yap added: “The Sheriff’s Office con­tin­ues to be a vital AeroX part­ner and inno­va­tor, lead­ing the way in aviation’s new fron­tier with this major advance in the area of pub­lic safe­ty.”

The non-prof­it AeroX, led by pub­lic and pri­vate part­ners includ­ing FSCO, works with inno­v­a­tive organ­i­sa­tions and the FAA to find new ways to use drones to deliv­er pub­lic and pri­vate ser­vices, car­go and, ulti­mate­ly, peo­ple that are more effec­tive, effi­cient, safer and less cost­ly.

AeroX is focus­ing first on expand­ing drone use in pub­lic safe­ty, with the DFR pro­gram as a major ini­tia­tive, pack­age deliv­ery and infra­struc­ture inspec­tion. AeroX con­tin­ues work on build­ing a ground-based sur­veil­lance sys­tem to sup­port low-alti­tude traf­fic man­age­ment, fund­ed by a $5 mil­lion grant from the North Car­oli­na Gen­er­al Assem­bly award­ed in Decem­ber 2021.

North Car­oli­na Gen­er­al Assem­bly awards AeroX $5 mil­lion grant for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Sys­tem

Dubbed Project Atlas, it is focused on pro­vid­ing sur­veil­lance data on ‘non-coop­er­a­tive air­craft’ with­out transpon­ders that help oth­er air­craft detect and avoid them. Fill­ing that crit­i­cal sur­veil­lance data gap will help sup­port FSCO and oth­er drone oper­a­tors seek­ing FAA approval to fly drones beyond the operator’s visu­al line of sight.

In May, AeroX began seek­ing infor­ma­tion from com­pa­nies to pro­vide a ground-based sur­veil­lance sys­tem to sup­port low-alti­tude traf­fic man­age­ment and to expand drone oper­a­tions in Win­ston-Salem and Forsyth Coun­ty, North Car­oli­na.

AeroX seeks low-alti­tude sur­veil­lance sys­tem to sup­port urban drone oper­a­tions in North Car­oli­na