Coimbatore: The Coimbatore city police tested a drone-based teargas launcher on the police recruitment grounds on Wednesday. The teargas launcher, which will help the police control the situation if there is a riot, was developed with the help of the Robotics and Automation Engineering (RAE) department of PSG College of Technology in the city.
The drone, named Riot Controller, had been displayed at the two-day International Conference on Advancements in Automation, Robotics and Sensing (ICAARS) organised by RAE recently.
A group of policemen were made to stand on the ground and the drone was deployed to resemble a mob. The college team, which developed the drone, operated it. Teargas shells were thrown a few metres away from the crowd. Apart from the ‘rioters,’ lensmen who were positioned a few metres away to capture the moment too felt irritation in their eyes.
The drone, which weighs 25kg, can carry 10.5kg payload. It is mounted with a night vision camera and can be used for patrolling at night. It has a range of 2km. A public address system can be fitted to it to use it for crowd management. There is a plan to install an ink sprayer on the drone. It will sprinkle ink on the rioters so that they can be caught later.
City police commissioner V Balakrishnan was present.
