MA-based robotics company, CyPhy Works has announced that its tethered drone, PARC, will be part of the safety and security measures used by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) at the 2017 Boston Marathon.
PARC is an acronym that stands for Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications. That means that like many of the runners, this drone can fly for a very long time. Think multi-day flights, not the 20-minute hops of the drone you bought last December. This means that for the first time ever, the security team can have access to a real-time HD video stream at their command center operations for the duration of the event.
“The wire provides power so it can stay up for days, and days, and days, it doesn’t have to come down,” Perry Stoll, CyPhy Works vice president of product and software told the Herald. “It can send unhackable, secure communication up and down the tether as well. It’s perfect for public safety and security where it has to be up for a while.”
“It’s really something new we’re going to be using where we have a very dense population of people between the village and the start line,” Kurt Schwartz of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency said during a marathon security briefing yesterday. “They will not be over spectator areas, and they will be providing live video feeds into public safety command centers.”
In Feb. 2016, the Tokyo Police asked for help to ensure all runners safely reached the finish line at The Tokyo Marathon.
Sources: Press Release; Boston Herald