LA Times: Drones Tested As Tools For Police And Firefighters

August 05, 2012

WASHINGTON -- On a chaparral-covered hillside 40 miles north of Los Angeles in June 2010, researchers from the Department of Homeland Security hid a device the size of a pack of cigarettes that emitted a safe pulse of low-grade radiation.

It was a stand-in for a dirty bomb, or fallout from a nuclear meltdown.

Nearby, a pilot toggled a joystick, and a gray drone with the wingspan of a California condor banked through the sky. As the plane's sensor sniffed for radioactive isotopes, law enforcement officers and firefighters watched a portable controller that looked like an oversized Game Boy.

In minutes, a warning signal glowed on the screen. The drone had detected the radiation.

Read More