Archive for June, 2009

The automation of humanitarian relief efforts is on the horizon, says University of Manchester employee Robert Richardson.  Recently, Richardson has been briefing members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Médecins Sans Frontières-UK, the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), and several other academic organizations on the usage of automated systems in humanitarian efforts. The aim of these talks is to open a dialogue between the designers of automated systems and humanitarian policy makers, making aid efforts more efficient in the future.

Although fully automating air transports, ground vehicles, and other systems can be done currently, the cost involved makes it impractical for every day use. Despite this, a number of advanced UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) have already seen operational use by governments and academic organizations. Currently, small UAVs can be used for low level aerial reconnaissance and surveillance, offering a bird’s eye view of almost any situation. VTOL type UAVs like the Draganflyer X6 have a number of immediate applications to humanitarian relief, which were the main focus of Mr. Richardson’s seminars:

Search and Rescue Operations with UAVs

Small, man portable UAVs have immediate applications to search and rescue work. Aerial pictures and video can provide a fast way to capture all the critical information of a location, and plan and deploy rescue efforts accordingly. We have designed the Draganflyer X6 UAV for this purpose, allowing it to be equipped with specialized cameras ranging from those sensitive to low lighting levels, to sophisticated FLIR infra-red heat sensing technology.

Small UAVs have another advantage over conventional technology – they are able to fly over any terrain. Rocky mountain ledges, dense forests, and water obstacles would stop ground based vehicles in their tracks. Being able to quickly fly to the situation and return is one reason that the future of search and rescue technology includes UAVs.

Starting UAV Search and Rescue Planning

“The idea is to get people involved in humanitarian issues to start thinking about these things,” says Richardson  – “We are trying to open doors.” He notes that everyday technology such as cars and other vehicles are being automated  all the time. “It is being done incrementally,” he says. “Instead of automating the whole thing at once, small parts of the car, like the traction control, are being made autonomous.”

“It is more about thinking what’s out there on the horizon, and what ought to be on your radar. We’re opening a dialogue. These organizations need to be able to engage with the experts.”

Rosie Oglesby, the coordinator of the seminars, says that the aim is to open the planning horizon, and to open a dialogue between scientists and humanitarian policy makers. As always, Draganfly Innovations is looking forward to creating new developments in the field. We anticipate a future where UAVs have every day applications, and continue our research and development with that vision in mind.

Quanser is an engineering consulting company, specializing in the production of mechanical systems and educational technology. One of their most recent experiments involved modifying the Draganflyer X6 UAV to include a full autopilot, able to fly to pre-assigned waypoints.

With it’s 6 brushless motors, 600 gram payload capacity, and flight stabilization software, the Draganflyer X6 makes the perfect platform for autopilot development. Quanser engineers were able to successfully interface a Gumstix computer board to the Draganflyer X6 flight systems, giving them complete control over the UAVs flight. The interface between the X6 UAV flight computer and Gumstix module is handled by the VAL, or Vehicle Abstraction Layer. Programming the VAL allows the engineers to develop high level programs, which run on a number of UAVs.

Gumstix circuit boards are actually fully functional computers, running the open source Linux operating system. Able to run on only 5 volts of electrical power, and measuring only a few centimetres in length, the Gumstix micro controllers are perfect for use on UAVs and other robotic platforms. Being open source, it’s extremely easy to develop interfaces to other software and hardware devices.

Current projects involve sending the Draganflyer X6 UAV to different GPS waypoints, and the color recognition of objects on the ground. Eventually, the Quanser team wants to program the Draganflyer X6 to interact with other ground and air vehicles in simulated missions. We look forward to seeing more of Quanser’s developments with the Draganflyer X6 UAV Helicopter.

ImageJ (Image Processing and Analysis) is a powerful, free, and industry standard image processing library. Designed to run on any operating system, ImageJ is the perfect software package for the analysis of UAV aerial images. Distances, areas, angles, and more complex analysis can all be done with ImageJ and orthophotos – this document will show you how.

An orthophoto is a geometrically correct image -  taken with the camera pointing straight down, at exactly 90 degrees to the horizontal. Orthophotos lack any distortion in shapes and distances, which are a side effect of projecting a 3 dimensional world onto a two dimensional camera sensor. Because they lack distortions, orthophotos can be used to measure the distances, angles, and areas of objects on the ground. Ideally, orthophotos are calibrated against a three dimensional model of the ground. This compensates for changes in ground level, which can cause distortions and changes in scale. Although the scale will change slightly – you can obtain a reasonable estimate of distances, areas, and other measurements without this calibration, just make sure that the camera and aircraft are as close to 90 degrees relative to the ground as possible. Be aware that measurements decrease in accuracy as the distance from the known measurement used for scale calculation increases. This is discussed in depth in the next sections.

The Draganflyer X6 UAV can take aerial pictures in a number of formats, and is fully compatible with the ImageJ software library.

Obtaining the ImageJ Software

ImageJ can be downloaded and installed on any operating system. If you don’t want to install imageJ to your computer, you can also run it as a Java Applet in your web browser.

Assuming that you opt for a hard drive installation, download a copy of ImageJ that matches your computer and operating system. Versions are available for Macintosh, Linux, and Windows, and are displayed on the download page. Windows users don’t need to install the version with Java included, if they already have Java installed.

Once you’ve downloaded ImageJ, double click the installer and select a directory that’s convenient for you to use. C:/Program Files works well on Microsoft Windows.

Image Analysis Basics: Measuring Distance, Angles, and Area

You can use the Draganflyer X6 UAV (equipped with the Panasonic LX3 digital camera), and the ImageJ software to do aerial surveying. ImageJ can measure the distances and angles between two objects on the ground, and compute the areas of selected regions. To do this, you have to provide ImageJ with a known length, or distance between two objects on the ground. The software uses this known distance, and divides it by the number of pixels that the same object occupies on the picture. This gives the picture scale, which is then used to do the calculations.

Finding an object with a known length in the same field of view as the object you want to measure can be challenging. Instead, we suggest this procedure for making aerial measurements:

1. Take the Draganflyer X6 UAV and a meter stick to the location you want to survey.
2. Place the meter stick on the ground, near to the object or area being measured.
3. Fly the Draganflyer X6 UAV over the target area, taking several aerial pictures.
4. Land and download the images to your computer for analysis.

Try to fly the UAV at a moderate altitude. The accuracy of the measurements will decrease with height, but you need the object that you’re measuring to fit into one picture.

Once you’ve obtained the aerial pictures needed, you’re ready to begin analysis with ImageJ. Click on “Start” if you’re using Windows, and then click on the ImageJ menu entry. The initial screen looks like this:

The top toolbar contains all the commands you can apply to an image. and the buttons show the various tools that you can use. Open an image by clicking “File”, and then clicking “Open”. Most file formats are supported, but we’ll use a JPEG file for this example. The file selection dialogue that appears looks like this:

After opening the file, a new window will appear. It may display the image as a thumbnail, scaled down to fit in a small window. Zoom in and out using Control + and Control -, until the image fits comfortably on your monitor. Now that you’ve got the image opened in ImageJ, we’ll go through some of the most common analysis procedures, starting with measuring the distance between two objects.

Calibrating the Image Scale

ImageJ must be calibrated before you can use it for measurements. When you took the images, you set a meterstick (or other object with a known length) on the ground. Find this meterstick in the image that you took, and click the line tool (highlighted in the screenshot below.)

Moving over to your image window, click on one end of the meterstick, and drag the mouse over to the other end, while holding the left mouse button down. Release the mouse button, and click the “Analyze” toolbar entry. Click the “Set Scale” entry in the menu that appears. A small window will appear, which looks like this:

The “Distance in Pixels” is the length of your meterstick, measured in pixels. Enter the meterstick’s actual length in the “Known Distance” entry, check the “Global” box, and then press “OK”. ImageJ will now calculate the image scale, and return you to the picture you’re working on.

A Real Life Example

The picture on the right was obtained using the Draganflyer X6 UAV, which was flown over a farm at a moderate altitude. An aluminium meterstick was set on the ground near the flight area, and can be clearly seen in the image (you may have to click and view the larger version.)

Using the meterstick, we followed the instructions above and found the picture scale to be 7.532 pixels per foot.

Measuring distances with ImageJ is easy – click and drag using the line tool mentioned earlier. Before you release the left mouse button, note the distance in ImageJ’s main window. For example: the distance between the shed and red car was found to be 94.48 feet. This can be seen in the following screenshot:

Measuring angles is also possible with ImageJ. Angles are always measured relative to the positive X axis, and the result is displayed in the ImageJ main window.

Perimeters and arbitrary areas can also be measured with ImageJ. Click any of the selection tools (such as freehand, ellipse, rectangle, etc) and make a selection. View the measurement data by clicking “analyze”, and then “measurements”. The window that appears looks like this:

You can change what information is displayed here by clicking the edit, and then set measurements. Additional information that can be found includes the integrated density, center of mass, and many others. Read the ImageJ documentation for a full description of it’s measurement capabilities.

Disclaimer

Using ImageJ and the Draganflyer UAV for aerial measurements can produce accurate results, but Draganfly Innovations makes no claim as to how accurate this method is in your particular case. Always assume an error of at least a few feet when taking distance measurements, and make sure that the helicopter is level when taking pictures. The camera must be set at 90 degrees to the helicopter for this method to work – do this by turning the camera tilt knob.

ImageJ is a powerful software program, and you can explore more of it’s functionality by reading the documentation.

UAVs are complicated machines, and it’s a true feat of engineering to be able to design and build them feasibly. To do so, however, requires an in-depth understanding of the underlying physics. A UAV has to be able to sense it’s position, velocity, acceleration, and many of the other variables that describe it’s motion. All of these ideas are clearly defined and described in the laws of physics, and understanding them can answer many questions about UAV flight characteristics. In this article, we’ll focus on VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing) UAVs like our Draganflyer X6, but the same concepts apply to all other air vehicles and UAVs.

Some Basic Concepts Explained

Before we can explain more complicated ideas (like how airfoils and accelerometers work), an understanding of a few basic physical principles is needed.  These include force, mass, and acceleration. We’re going to skip a more thorough explanation (which would require calculus), and instead use a purely algebraic approach.

Mass

Mass is a quantity that defines how an object interacts with a gravitational field, and how acceleration, momentum, energy and similar concepts work. Mass is commonly associated with weight, and it’s true that an increase in mass results in an increase in weight, but they are two separate concepts. Weight is a force – a push or pull on an object, while mass is a quantity intrinsic to a particular object. The SI (International System) unit of mass is the Kilogram, equal to a weight of 1000 grams. Kilograms are different from pounds – a pound is a unit of force, which we will describe shortly.

Velocity

Velocity is often used as a synonym for speed, but as with mass and weight, they are two separate ideas. Speed measures how fast something is moving, without reference to the direction that it’s travelling. Velocity keeps track of both speed and direction, giving a more complete picture of the behaviour of an object. The direction is given as an angle, measured with respect to some reference. Angle usually has units of degrees, of which there are 360 in a complete circle.

Acceleration

Acceleration describes the rate at which velocity changes. You can find the average acceleration of an object by dividing the change in velocity (delta V) by the time interval in which that change takes place (delta T). The result becomes more precise as you let delta T and delta V get smaller, and as they become infinately small, the calculation becomes precise. Acceleration is measured by an electronic device called an accelerometer. Our Draganflyer X6 UAV has 3 accelerometers, which measure acceleration in the X, Y, and Z directions respectively.

Acceleration takes into account both the change in speed and the change in direction, making it a vector quantity as well.

Force

Now that acceleration and mass are understood, we can define force. Loosely, force is a “push” or “pull” on an object. Mathematically, force is the product of mass and acceleration (also known as Newton’s Second Law). This makes sense intuitively: the force required to move an object gets larger as the object gets heavier, and it also increases if you want to accelerate it faster.

From this, we can see that applying a force to an object with mass will result in an acceleration, and in order to accelerate an object, a force must be applied.

It may be hard to believe, but these few concepts are actually all you need to understand the basic physics of aircraft and UAV flight. New concepts are built upon them, but these same principals are fundamental.

UAV Flight Equilibrium

Equilibrium is a state of motion where all forces balance, cancelling each other out exactly. Because any force on an object causes an acceleration, so if an aircraft is to remain in one place all the forces acting on it must add to 0. So how does this happen?

Let’s start by imagining a generic aircraft, that is currently hovering in one place. The forces acting on it are:

• Gravity, pulling downwards
• Thrust from the motors, pushing upwards

We will neglect airflow, torque from the propellers, or any other force that acts sideways.

In order to hover without gaining or losing altitude, the thrust from the motors must equal the force of gravity. This is shown graphically on the right. The gravitational force is represented by the green arrow, and the lift force provided by the motors is shown by the orange arrow.

This concept becomes immediately useful. For example: the Draganflyer X6 weighs 1000 grams, so the motors and propellers need to provide exactly 1000 grams of thrust downwards to keep the UAV in a hover.

Obviously, the forces don’t always have to balance. If we wanted the UAV to turn, that imbalance has to be created. On the Draganflyer X6, this is done by spinning one of the propeller sets faster than the other two. This creates an excess force on one side of the aircraft, resulting in an acceleration. It’s this acceleration of one side of the aircraft that allows the turn. Once the aircraft is banked, all the thrust from the motors is directed away from the downward direction, allowing it to move relative to the ground. When we desire the motion to stop, the UAV banks in the opposite direction.

Error Measurements

Every measurement has an error of uncertainty associated with it. It’s theoretically impossible to measure something with absolute precision. Because of this, all of the instruments built in to the Draganflyer X6 have an error tolerance associated with them. This error can be estimated as the smallest graduation on the measuring device. The magnetometer, for example, is capable of measuring to the nearest degree. This error may increase due to external influences, such as electric equipment operating nearby.

Because every instrument in the IMU has an error bar, the flight computer can’t be 100% sure of the UAVs position at any given time. This means that if you let go of the controls, the UAV will drift off of the position that you left it in. It’s simply a consequence of the physics involved – no amount of engineering precision can change the fact that there will always be an error in the instrument measurments.

In a well designed aircraft, errors are handled well so that their effect on flight performance is minimal. In the Draganflyer X6, for example, the uncertainty in GPS position is always displayed on the handset, and trim tabs are provided to cancel out any unwanted movement. We’ve taken every possible step to minimize the effect of errors, and display them to the user.

Applications to UAV and Aircraft Design

All these concepts are important, but how are they applied to UAV design? Well, we know from Newtons Second Law that any force results in an acceleration, which is just a change in velocity. UAVs need to control their position and velocity, so there must be some means of obtaining and processing this information. Our Draganflyer X6 UAV does this by using the following:

• A magnetometer to measure heading
• 3 accelerometers to measure acceleration
• A GPS to find position and velocity
• A barometric pressure sensor to measure altitude

Combined, all these sensors can be considered an “inertial measurement unit”, or IMU. Data from each of these sensors is processed by the flight computer and used to make altitude, heading, and speed corrections.

The physics behind how the Draganflyer X6 UAV works are complicated, but these simple ideas should help you to understand why it behaves the way it does, and the degree of understanding required to build such a complicated machine.

Panasonic has recently released a firmware update for their DMC-LX3 series digital cameras. Most cameras are shipped with firmware version 1.2, and upgrading to version 1.3 will unlock several new features, including:

• The auto white balance function has been improved.
• The camera recovers gracefully if turned on with the lens cap still in place.
• The MF ASSIST/AF area selection has been improved.
• The display of manual exposures has been improved.

Firmware version 1.2 works, but it’s always a good idea to keep your camera running at the latest version. Here’s an easy – and free – way to upgrade the firmware and improve your cameras performance.

To Update Your Camera’s Firmware:

1. Fully charge the camera battery. If the battery runs out of power while the firmware is installing, it’s very likely that you will make the camera un-usable. The camera will display “no valid picture to play” if you try to update the firmware with a partially charged battery.
2. Check your firmware version. If you already have the latest firmware version, you don’t need to update. Check your version by pressing “menu / set”, then scrolling to settings, and then selecting “Version Disp.” You only need the update if your version is less than 1.3.
3. Download firmware version 1.3. Click either the Windows or Mac version (depending on your operating system) on Panasonic’s site, and download the firmware to your computer. The Mac version comes as a zip file, while the windows version is a self extracting executable file. Unzip the mac version, or run the windows version, and find the resulting .bin file. Make sure that the .bin file size is exactly 6,096,384 bytes. You can check this in Windows by right clicking the .bin file and selecting “Properties”. The file size on disk will be slightly different, but that doesn’t matter. Only the actual file size is important. Checking the file size makes sure that you don’t have a corrupt copy. If you find the file size is different, try downloading the file again.
4. Copy the firmware to an SD card. Make sure that there are no files on the SD card, and that it’s been formatted to work with the camera. Formatting instructions can be found in the camera’s instruction manual. Once the card is ready, add the .bin file that you downloaded.  If your computer doesn’t have an SD card reader / writer, use a portable USB one, available at most computer stores.
5. Set up the camera. To update the camera firmware, several switches have to be in the correct position. With the camera OFF, slide switch “C” to the  position, and move switch “B” to the playback position (NOT the position). Insert the SD card you prepared earlier and turn the camera on by sliding the power switch to the “on” position.
6. If you’ve followed the above steps exactly, the camera will now display “Please wait…”. After a few seconds, a menu asking “Start version up?” will be shown. Select “yes” using button “A” and press menu / set to confirm.
7. The firmware will now update. It is critical that you don’t touch any of the camera buttons during the update process. After the update finishes, the camera will reboot (power off and then on again) and resume normal operation. You can tell that the firmware update completes when you see the camera screen power off and then back on. After the update finishes, the warning not to touch the camera buttons will disappear.
8. Verify that the update was successful. You can verify that the firmware update was successful by navigating to the version display item in the setting menu. It should display version 1.3.

Congratulations! You’ve just updated the firmware on your Panasonic LX3 series digital camera. The new firmware will keep your camera up to date, and give you access to all the latest features.

Enjoy using the Panasonic LX3 for your RC UAV aerial photography!

Digital cameras are versatile devices, capable of recording images in many file formats. Common formats include JPG, BMP, TIFF, and many others, and their relative advantages and disadvantages are explained here.

What Is a File Format?

Simply put, a file format is just a particular way of encoding information for storage in a computer file. Computers are binary devices (operating with a number system of only 1’s and 0’s), so file formats can be thought of as a way to convert back and fourth between the original information and it’s binary representation. There are many different file formats, and some are more flexible than others. For example: the GIF file format can be used as a container for images or simple animations, while the JPG format can only store simple images.

Different file formats are identified by what’s called the file name extension. Adding a dot to the end of the file name and appending the abbreviation of the file format lets both people and programs know what the file format is. Changing the file extension doesn’t convert the file to another format though – it’s best thought of as a “note” or reminder of how to treat the file.

File formats are also identified by internal markers, usually strings of characters in the header of the file. Using different methods to identify the file format helps to ensure that it’s always handled correctly.

Why There are Different Image File Formats

When an image is downloaded from a camera, it’s encoded as different lighting and color levels for each pixel on the camera’s charge coupled device (CCD) sensor. All digital cameras have a CCD chip, which consists of an array of light sensitive pixels. Each pixel generates an electric current when a photon strikes it, known as the photoelectric effect. This current is read from each pixel and then recorded in memory as a series of light levels and colors. Obviously, a long list of numbers isn’t a human readable image. Most often, this RAW file format is immediately converted to one which is more easy to use, such as a JPG or TIFF. The image can then be read by a computer and printed or rendered on a screen.

There are different image file formats so, depending on your project, you need to compromise between image quality, file size, and many other parameters.

Comparing File Formats

With so many different file formats to choose from, it’s useful to understand what each is designed to do, so that you can use the right ones for your project. Here are some of the most common:

• JPG / JPEG – The name JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. It’s a “lossy” file format designed to compress image data, reducing the size of the resulting file with a minimal loss of image quality. JPEG is a standard, ISO certified file format, and is commonly used to transmit images on the internet. Because of this, it’s one of the most commonly used formats on digital cameras. The small file size allows a large number of images to be stored on a single memory card, making it convenient to use.Whenever an image is stored in the JPEG file format, some information is lost. Because of this, JPEG is not suitable for usage where the exact replication of the original image data is required.
• BMP – The BMP, or bitmap format, is one of the most simple. It does not compress images, and stores image pixels with a color depth of 1, 4, 8, 16, 24, or 32 bits. For example: a 32×32 thumbnail image appears small when displayed on the screen. Enlarging the image will show each pixel as a large block, reducing the image quality. BMP is not a lossless format, and the large file sizes make it unsuitable for transmitting over the internet or storing on small memory cards.
• TIFF – TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format. Designed to store images such as photographs and line art. The TIFF file format specification is currently owned by Adobe Systems. TIFF was designed to encode image data simply, in a single file, through the use of header tags defining the image size and other parameters. TIFF is a lossless format, meaning that no image information is lost when the file is compressed. This means that it can be edited and re saved without losing quality. TIFF is the preferred format for high color depth and high quality digital cameras. The files produced using the TIFF format are generally larger than equivalent JPEG files, but this is because of the lossless compression used by TIFF.
• GIF – The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmapped file format, supporting 8 bits per pixel and a reference palette of 256 unique colors. The GIF file format can be used to create animations, and is sometimes used in websites. The GIF format is not used in digital photography, because of it’s quality limitations.
• PNG – The Portable Network Graphics format is similar to the GIF format, in that it uses lossless data compression, but PNG does not support animations, and it can use more than 256 colors.
• Raw – The raw file format is significantly different than those mentioned above. It’s relative advantages and disadvantages are discussed below.

The Raw File Format

A raw image file contains the minimally processed output from a digital camera’s image sensor. Raw images are not ready to be printed or edited with graphics softare – they must be “developed”, or turned into a different format first. Raw images are best thought of as film negatives- they aren’t directly usable as an image, but contain all the information necessary to create one.

So why would you use a raw image? It turns out that every JPEG or TIFF you download from a digital camera was a raw image at some point, the camera just converted it. High end cameras allow users to control how their images are “developed”, but the amount of control you have over the process is usually fairly limited. In this conversion process, some of the raw information about what the camera saw is always lost.

If you’re interested in seeing exactly what the camera saw, without losing any information during processing, then using the raw image format is the best option. Raw images give the photographer a great amount of flexibility, allowing you to precisely control the brightness, contrast, sharpness and other variables. Using raw image files can help you capture the detail that you wouldn’t otherwise get if using a processed image format.

Here are some of the benefits of raw image files:

• Higher Image Quality – All the processing takes place in one step, improving the final image quality.
• Better Intensity Information – Raw image files have 12 or 14 bits of brightness information, as opposed to the 8 bits a JPEG can provide.
• Finer Control – When you “develop” your raw image files, you have complete control over many of the variables, including brightness, contrast, and many others.
• Remove Unneeded Processing – Most digital cameras do additional processing on the images they take, including sharpening and noise reduction.
• Better Manipulation Possibilities – Transforming images in large ways, such as by increasing the exposure of an underexposed image can result in artifacts. Using raw images minimizes these, because the image has not already been pre processed.

Raw image files also have a number of disadvantages, the most notable being the large file size. Raw Images are typically 6 times larger than an equivalent JPEG, which reduces the number of pictures that can be stored on one memory card. It also takes more time to download a raw image from the chip and write it to a memory card, necessitating the use of more expensive camera equipment.

Unlike the other, processed formats mentioned here, there’s no one specification for a raw image. Camera manufacturers use different formats for their products, and the formats are often un-documented. There are several free projects under development that can read raw image files, most notably the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Dcraw is also capable of reading and editing many raw file formats. Both these programs run on Microsoft Windows, and UNIX like operating systems including Mac OSX.

Aerial Photography Police Applications of The Raw File Format

For any police or law enforcement organization, collecting aerial pictures as evidence is best done in the raw format. When you are obtaining evidence, you don’t want to miss a single detail. The raw file format was designed to faithfully record everything that the camera sensor sees. With the raw file format, you are guaranteed that you don’t miss any detail in your pictures due to processing.

Because the white balance and other settings are not set when the camera takes the picture, they can be adjusted after the images are taken to ensure maximum image quality.

Our Draganflyer X6 UAV was designed to give users the maximum choice in camera equipment. Because of this, it can be equipped with the Panasonic LX3 digital camera, which supports output in the raw format.

At the time of writing, both Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Sikypix support the Panasonic LX3 raw image format.

The use of technology in policing has allowed police services world wide to increase their effectiveness. The Ontario Provincial Police have an Information Technology Framework that is responsive to the changing demands of modern policing. Within this framework the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) use the Draganflyer X6 in their Unmanned Aerial Vehicle project.

The Ontario Provincial Police 2009 Provincial Business Plan / 2008 Annual Report (page 27) discusses how the Draganflyer X6 has been used to support the OPP Northwest Region Forensic Identification Unit to obtain high quality digital aerial images of major case scenes in a timely and efficient manner while operating in a secure police environment.

The Draganflyer X6 is the first North American, federally approved, commercially manufactured UAV legal for use by emergency services in North America. The technologically advanced Draganflyer X6 has enhanced investigations by providing high quality aerial photos of seven homicide scenes. The Draganflyer X6 has been able to enhance these investigations because of its multiple camera configurations, including Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) which assists assessing tactical support options.