Drone aircraft - the new UK immigration control

November 27 2009 by Liam Clifford

UK immigration turn to robots in the fight to keep the borders secure.

The aircraft, known in the armed forces as ‘drones’, are actually Unmanned Autonomous Systems (UAS).

It is planned that they would patrol the coastline and the shipping channels. The aircraft, which operate at 20,000 feet and can stay in the air for 15 hours at a time, would use high resolution imagery to scan vessels around the UK borders and relay those images back to police control rooms.

BAE systems have announced they are working with UK immigration and two police forces at present, in investigating the possibility of using the technology.

The drones can be controlled with the click of a mouse and may even be expanded past the present plans for UK immigration, BAE saying they are an ideal low-cost solution for the surveillance of large scale events such as festivals.

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