Police Drones are Coming!
By Brian Hicks | Thursday, March 13th, 2014
Ominous code-names like 'Predator' and 'Global Hawk' have entered the popular lexicon.
With hundreds of them operating overseas — either watching over or obliterating the enemy on a 24-hour, 7-day schedule — it seems the novelty of flying killer robots has actually worn off.
Well, I'm glad to say there's a whole other side to this story of man's triumph over technology, and that's the often-overlooked corner of the unmanned air vehicle family known as a miniature, or man-portable, UAV.
The Better to See You With
The reason it's exciting isn't because these little monsters are as deadly as their 10-ton, multi-million-dollar counterparts (although at least one apparently now is), but that their biggest prospective market is right here on our own home turf.
Local police forces and security firms might not be able to afford a $17 million reaper drone nor have a need for its laser-guided bombs, but they do have room for things like the Qube by AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV).
It may look like a toy, but this is actually a very serious piece of equipment with a very serious price tag.
Weighing 5 lbs. and featuring the ability to take off and land vertically, this quad-rotor device is exactly the sort of thing you will see used more and more by domestic government and private security agencies.
Unit price: $50,000.
According to Bloomberg, as of 2012, only 1% of the nation's 18,000 police departments had aviation capability — part of the reason being FAA restrictions on UAVs.
Keeping Up With the Joneses
However, there is plenty of evidence that the FAA, now under pressure from more police departments around the country, will be loosening restrictions and ultimately opening the door for devices like the Qube to enter routine service in the skies above our heads.
Last year, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the FAA released a list of police departments currently seeking approval to put UAVs into service.
Here is what the map looked like... And remember, this was more than a year ago.
If you're one to fear the government, this is where you should fight the urge to get paranoid.
Because besides being one of the front-running suppliers for the snooping programs of domestic law, AeroVironment still produces a great line of products for the foreign market, as well.
Afghanistan Today... Albuquerque Tomorrow
Since 2002, one of the company's iconic products has been the 4.2-lb., 10-km range, hand-launched RQ-11 Raven.
Good for both police departments and platoons of foot soldiers, the Raven is a great example of a concept minimized to its most basic.
It can stay in the air for more than an hour, operating within a 10-kilometer radius.
It's light, it's silent, it's cheap to operate, and it provides a tactical advantage to police or military for which there simply is no substitute.
This is an advantage that has been recognized on a universal level.
To date, more than 20 nations use them, with the U.S. inventory consisting of no fewer than 5,000 units.
That's all well and good as a workhorse, but far more exotic, terrifying, and therefore cool is the 2.2-lb. Switchblade.
Carried in a backpack and fired out of a tube like a mortar shell, the Switchblade has the ability to loiter over an area for 40 minutes, sending back a live video feed of enemy positions before, at the will of its operator, careening into the enemy with its high-explosive warhead.
Its destructive power is said to be similar to that of a hand-grenade... More than enough to dissuade a party of ambushers from continuing the fight.
Okay, so maybe the domestic market isn't quite ready for the Switchblade (not yet, anyway), but you have to admit, in a world where smaller and lighter is better, and in an industry where your products have to snoop, destroy, and everything in between, AeroVironment has a pretty good thing going.
Their latest project is the Hummingbird, developed to specifications established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Still in development, it carries a camera, operates inside or outside, and flies continuously for 11 minutes — mimicking the natural motions of the bird it was made to resemble.
As prospective as the business of compact unmanned air vehicles is, AeroVironment is still a pretty small operation.
What's Grim for Privacy Looks Bright for Profits
The company's market cap is just barely $800 million — the highest it's been since it went public in January of 2007, and certainly the highest valuation the company's had since it was founded in 1971.
But that's still quite small for what is becoming a leading government contractor in one of the fastest-growing defense tech specialties out there today.
However you choose to view society's rapidly deepening relationship with aerial drones, see it for the predictable force that it is.
Once we start viewing this technology with casual indifference, it will remain with us forever... Much like the electric streetlight was many years ago, and cell phones and Internet are more recently.
Right now, we've only seen the very beginning. Call it a 'pre-golden era' for UAVs.
2014 has already been a great year for the industry, contributing to AeroVironment's 25% rally since the start of the new year. |
