Parrot’s new drones could save lives

After a natural disaster, the process of finding survivors can be a dangerous and arduous undertaking. There might be downed power-lines, impassable flooded streets, or unstable ground to work around.

A new drone from Parrot has the potential to help. Outfitted with a thermal camera, the Bebop Pro Thermal can fly over devastated areas and feed a live image back to an app, providing up-to-date status information and identifying hot spots — including the heat given off by a survivor’s body.

Parrot announced a pair of new mid-range professional drones on Tuesday. The two devices have very specific jobs and are meant to fill in a need between consumer drones and pricy commercial offerings.

The $1,500 Parrot Bebop-Pro Thermal is for construction, inspection, and public safety workers. In addition to search and rescue, its two cameras can be used to see where heat is escaping from a roof, or what areas are still too hot after a fire.

The idea of using drones in public safety is not new. Parrot has been working closely with public safety workers in France to find out the best ways a drone can help during an emergency. In 2016, parts of Paris experienced extreme flooding. Parrot worked with the local Fire and Emergency Department to send drones out to monitor water levels and help gather information that was later used to decide on an evacuation.

Now the company is hoping a drone built just for those kinds of tasks can take off, and maybe even save lives.

Source: CNN

Photograph: © Unsplash