EENA's work on drones

Overview of EENA's work on drones

 

IN A NUTSHELL

Drones are transforming emergency services in many ways. While they can have significant added value to emergency services, they can also create problems, for example when drones are flown by hobbyists and interfere with the smooth operation of emergency response.

 

WORKING GROUP ON DRONES

As a result of the growing influence and impact drones have, EENA launched a Working Group on Drones in June 2015 (press release available here), in order to cover technical, legal and operational aspects of using drones in emergency situations.

 

The Working Group gathers 131 members from 37 countries worldwide.

 

DRONES & PUBLIC SAFETY SUMMIT

The 1st Drones and Public Safety Summit took place on 20 September 2018 at the Fire Brigade of Brussels. About 200 participants from 30 countries discussed how to foster the use of drones by emergency and rescue services.

Read more about the outcomes of the event here.

 

DRONE EFFICACY STUDY

In September 2018, the results of Phase 2 of the EENA – DJI pilot project were released in the Drone Efficacy Study. The study found that search and rescue (SAR) teams found simulated victims faster when they used drones for help and concluded that drones offer enormous potential to help SAR efforts.

Read the Drone Efficacy Study here.

 

WHITE PAPER BY THE WORKING GROUP ON DRONES

In November 2015, the Working Group published a white paper analysing the technical, legal and operational, safety and privacy aspects of using RPAS in emergency situations, providing the context for their use and highlighting some key recommendations for their effective implementation.

Read the white paper here.

 

EENA/DJI PILOT TEST PROGRAMME

In the context of our work on drones, we entered into a partnership with DJI to understand and evaluate the use of RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems) or UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) in civil protection/first responder scenarios in a number of pilot sites in Europe.

The main objective for the project is to learn how such technology can assist our fire and rescue services, Emergency Medical Services (EMS), police services, coastguards and humanitarian organizations in different scenarios and in different environments such as urban, rural, mountainous, forest and “over-water” conditions.

Read more about the test programme here.

Interested in the final report of the project? Take a look here.

 

Check the recording of the webinar presenting the project results here.

 

Sample of press coverage:

• Wired
• Danish TV
• France 24 (08:31 onwards)
• New York Times

 

DRONES HEATMAP IN EUROPE

On the map below is the known RPAS deployed by the emergency services. The information is sourced from publicly available data. EENA will update the map frequently so if you would like to add or amend any information, please send an email to Alfonso Zamarro at az@eena.org.

 

 

 

CONTACT

Would you like more information about EENA's work on drones? Feel free to contact Alfonso Zamarro at az@eena.org.