The Highway Patrol Vehicles Of The Future Will Be Mostly Self-Driving Drones
(NYT) No longer only in the realm of futuristic movies, these new cop cars are already in the prototype development stage. It's only a matter of time before they become a reality on our streets. Autonomous vehicles and flying drones that would disable a suspect’s car remotely with an electromagnetic pulse are set to patrol highways by 2025 according to a number of concept vehicles designed by major manufacturers such as Honda, BMW and General Motors. BMW’s DesignworksUSA studio came up with the E-Patrol (Human-Drone Pursuit Vehicle), which would allow the operator to deploy an airborne armed surveillance drone which would have the capability to disable a suspect’s vehicle using an electromagnetic pulse. “The main structure can deploy three drones. The top drone sits above the main structure and is a flying drone, while the other two are one wheel vehicles attached to the rear,” according to BMW. “In the case of a pursuit during heavy traffic areas, the patrol officer sitting in the two passenger main structure can deploy either the flying drone or one of the single wheel drones to chase the suspect and report back data to the main structure. When all drones are deployed, the main structure can continue to function. All drones have added protection benefits in that they can send an impulse to another vehicle and disable it.” One of the concept drawings for the BMW design shows a license plate scanner within the vehicle which automatically brings up a photograph of every driver on the road, whether they are a suspect or not. “By coincidence or destiny, designers at several companies came up with concepts for robotic, autonomously driven vehicles on ground, water and air.
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