“If you have the Guardian playing a siren tone that is tuned to match the frequency of the speaker and a police car next to it playing a siren tone, the Guardian will be three times louder,” he said.
Seattle-based BRINC currently makes drones used by more than 900 U.S. cities, including Laredo, Texas, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, as part of a growing “drones as first responder” (DFR) system.
Typically, cities pay a few hundred thousand dollars per year per drone – contracts with more drones and greater capabilities reach millions. A year ago, Newport Beach, California, announced a $2.17 million, five-year contract with BRINC for seven drones. (According to Forbes, BRINC is valued at about $480 million as of last year.)
An existing customer, the Redmond Police Department in Washington state, told Ars that this new model was a “completely new and different airframe”.
“This is a huge step forward in DFR innovation and possibility,” police spokeswoman Jill Green emailed.
Still, Fenn Greenwood, a longtime drone watcher and analyst, was not convinced by the news.
“Even if these claims are true (which I doubt at the moment), the speed/battery life is an incremental improvement compared to other comparable drone platforms,” Greenwood told Ars by email. “It’s not a game-changer situation, and I don’t really see it as changing the math for police who are concerned about drones.”
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