iPhone-Sized Radar Saving Lives, Helping Drones Catch Crooks

Newsweek

24-07-2025

Nestled in a valley in the desert, where high winds, an in-town airport and a consistent influx of travelers make policing a challenge, the City of Palm Springs, California, is taking advantage of new drone technology to protect residents and visitors.
The Palm Springs Police Department's implementation of drones as first responder technology builds on the lessons learned from the City of Chula Vista, California's Police Department's Drone Program, which started using Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS), also known as drones, to respond to calls for service in 2018.
"Many years ago, we were looking at helicopters for the city of Palm Springs, and bringing a helicopter unit here, and we just couldn't make that happen, primarily because people didn't want to see the city that they often like to refer to as a village become a big city, in terms of having helicopters flying all over the place and waking them up all hours of the night," Lt. William Hutchinson, head of the Palm Springs Police Department's Operations Division, told Newsweek.
In the years since, drone technology has evolved and now allows UAS docking stations with remote deployment. But, Hutchinson wasn't sure that was even an option for Palm Springs.
A view of Palm Springs, California, December 27, 2017.
A view of Palm Springs, California, December 27, 2017.
miroslav_1/Getty Images
"[The city] is in Class D airspace, and we have an international airport in the middle of the city. We started saying, 'Is this even possible for us?' And they said, 'You know, maybe not.' And so, I started looking at the different solutions. Matrix Space was one of the first [companies] I looked at," he said.
Worried about implementation cost, Hutchinson, Palm Springs City Manager Scott Stiles and Chief of Police Andrew Mills put their heads together to find a solution. Hutchinson remembers that it was Mills who found that the state's Corrections department was offering grants for combating retail, auto and catalytic converter theft. This opportunity, Hutchinson said, is what spurred the agency to begin thinking of the possibility of being an innovator in the space, "using technology to reduce response times, increase apprehension rates," he shared.
The city sent representatives on fact-finding missions to surrounding jurisdictions, including Beverly Hills, to find out if technology like a real-time crime center and drone technology would make sense for Palm Springs. Hutchinson recalls Mills positing to him: "Is this just a shiny new toy? Everybody's using these real-time crime centers and these drones. Are they really effective? And what's the data tell us, and how are we going to measure the impact?"
Hutchinson was keen not to "overthink" the potential. "If we're talking about improving response times, our average response time to an emergency is anywhere from five to seven minutes, and agencies are getting on scene with drones and real-time crime centers in less than a minute. That's just one value that we can look at," he said.
Hutchinson said that the question then became: "We've got about 40 square miles that we need covered, and I want to be able to put a drone anywhere in the city and be able to fly day and night without any restrictions. Can we make that happen?"
With MatrixSpace solutions, it was possible. The company sells MatrixSpace 360 Radar, an advanced radar technology that uses a radar system mounted to a pole-based array to capture telemetry of objects over a large area. And, MatrixSpace has a partnership with DroneSense, a drone management and collaboration platform that combines layers of radar system and drone operation data for law enforcement purposes.
Today, Palm Springs is covered by 10 radar monitors with two more coming later this year. Those are a necessary add-on that other cities don't have to install because of the airport's proximity to the city, ensuring the drones are not in the pathway of outgoing or incoming flights.
Cathedral City, the town next to Palm Springs, is cooperating with Palm Springs, installing a drone dock there and adding five to six square miles of operational airspace to the UAS as a first responder program. "We can get anywhere on a call for service in under a minute with these drones positioned the way they are," Hutchinson said.
Those drones are dispatched to calls by officers seated at desks at the Palm Springs Police Department's headquarters. They monitor the airspace, the city's Flock Safety camera system (license plate reader technology), police dispatches and incoming 911 calls in concert. This allows them to get a jump on deploying the drones, often before officers are dispatched to the call.
"The drone pilots are listening to that 911 call in real time from their computer, and if it's a traffic accident or a burglary or robbery or a violent crime in progress, they're getting that information before it's being put into the CAD system, and before it's being given to the officers, and they're launching a drone immediately to that location," Hutchinson said. The drones autonomously pilot themselves to the incident site.
Using DroneSense, dispatched officers are able to receive real-time updates while they are on their way to the scene. "They point and click, and they autonomously launch the drone to that location, and they start looking for the suspect or the vehicle or the accident, or whatever the incident may be, and at the same time that information is being transmitted to the officers via Drone Sense, to their cell phones and to the their mobile data computers. If they're not monitoring because they're driving or they're not on the scene, then the drone pilot is communicating with the officers on the ground what they're seeing," Hutchinson said.
Recently, the police department had a great success using the drone system in tandem with officer intervention. The city received a 911 call that told of a dine and dash situation, where a customer leaves a restaurant without paying. "We sent [the drone] and the drone pilot sees the guy matching the description at a hotel down the street, talking to another guy in the parking lot. And then, finds that that guy is walking around, doesn't even see the drone, walks up and goes into one of the hotel rooms and is using the bathroom," Hutchinson said.
The drone gave all this information to officers, allowing them to quickly and easily find the suspect. "Sure enough, officers get there, contact this guy in the hotel room, and they identify him as the suspect in the dine and dash... If that drone wasn't up in that quick amount of time, it would have seen a suspect; the officers likely wouldn't have never found that suspect down the street at that hotel in the parking lot," Hutchinson said.
Wind-powered electricity generators near Palm Springs, California.
Wind-powered electricity generators near Palm Springs, California.
Jon G. Fuller / VWPics via AP Images
The city has also used the MatrixSpace and DroneSense systems in more serious circumstances. Hutchinson personally flew a drone at the site of the May 17 bombing at the American Reproductive Centers fertility clinic.
"I did that from my home. I was able to log on, watch the airspace, fly that drone and get eyes on and to recognize [that we had] some type of an explosion that's pretty catastrophic, [and that] we need[ed] a lot of resources on scene. The drone has really proved to be an invaluable asset to law enforcement for situational awareness and helping officers have that information in real time so they can make better decisions when they get on scene," he said.
The police department frequently interacts with calls for service that involve the fire department as well. Palm Springs PD is able to use the drone system to assist with those calls as well. "If we're launching a drone on a call, what we're finding is that [using] the drone, the fire department's able to get a good visual before they're even on scene. It helps them make a determination about exactly how many assets they need to roll on fires," Hutchinson said.
The drone is able to scan rooftops and use thermal imaging to direct the fire department to where hot spots are upon arrival, saving precious minutes.
"Our fire department is just starting to realize the value in it and being able to really use it more and more frequently on calls for service. While it's new to them, it's definitely an exciting add-on as an asset to their responses as well," he said.
The MatrixSpace system is also helping to keep the city safe in a way residents and festival-going visitors may never have thought of. The city and surrounding area are home to numerous large-scale annual events including the Palm Springs International Film Festival, BNP Paribas Open, Stagecoach Country Music Festival, The Galleri Classic and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
Hutchinson explained: "The radar system helps us detect moving objects in the sky. Because the city is in a zero grid, we have close communication with the [Palm Springs International Airport control] tower. We're able to find out if anybody submitted a flight plan or a LAANC [Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability] or requested permission to fly.
"Our radar system is able to detect drones in an airspace. We can see where it took off from. We can track it and then eventually identify where the pilot was when it goes back to land... It's not only helping us identify the aircraft in the airspace so we can fly safely, but it's helping us identify threats that are in the airspace that could potentially be a problem for our events."