Gilbert Tests Various Drones as First Responders

The Town of Gilbert, Arizona is quietly building one of the more serious Drone as First Responder programs in the Southwest, with its Police and Fire departments jointly testing autonomous drone deployments to improve emergency response times, as reported by The Gilbert Sun News.

At a recent town council retreat, Assistant Police Chief Jim Bisceglie presented early results from ongoing trials, along with a proposed $281,850 budget to deploy four DFR drones in Fiscal Year 2027. If the program meets performance expectations, both departments plan to expand to 14 drones in FY2028.

Gilbert Police already operates 32 unmanned aerial systems, with 24 assigned to patrol and eight dedicated to traffic reconstruction and special operations. These drones are routinely used for SWAT support and serious crash investigations, significantly reducing manpower hours by rapidly mapping scenes from the air.

The department currently has 30 FAA certified drone pilots who have logged 2,459 flights and more than 407 flight hours. Just WOW. This has to be one of the police department with more pilots per sq feet that we have ever wrote about.

Gilbert Fire is equally invested, operating 10 drones with eight certified pilots who have flown 2,145 missions across fire response, search and rescue, hazardous materials incidents, and special events.

According to Fire Chief of Special Operations Michael Connor, drone usage continues to rise as call volume increases.

How Drone as First Responder Works

Under current operations, personnel respond to a scene and launch drones from the ground. The DFR model changes that entirely.

Instead of waiting for officers or firefighters to arrive, drones are pre-positioned in secured docks around town and launched remotely from a centralized operations center the moment assistance is requested.

Bisceglie explained that Gilbert’s drone pilots are FAA authorized to conduct fully remote operations, allowing drones to arrive on scene before ground units and provide real-time intelligence.

The program is not intended to replace first responders, but to enhance situational awareness, reduce unnecessary dispatches, and improve decision-making before personnel ever step out of a vehicle.

During a 45-day pilot program with California based Skydio, Gilbert Police and Fire flew 523 drone missions across 341 calls for service. In 35 percent of those calls, the drone arrived before patrol officers.

On 84 calls, drones arrived nearly six minutes before officers. On another 118 calls, drones beat patrol by more than five minutes. In 52 cases, the drone assessment allowed the town to avoid dispatching officers entirely, freeing up units for higher priority calls.

The pilot used two Skydio docks and averaged nearly eight flights per day. However, coverage was limited to about 4.1 percent of the town due to the three mile operational radius per dock.

Bisceglie noted that a full deployment would require multiple dock locations, with redundancy at critical sites to ensure uptime during battery swaps.

Vendors, DJI Concerns, and What Comes Next

Gilbert is currently evaluating four vendors: Skydio, Aerodome, Brinc, and Paladin.

Aerodome, based in Los Angeles, is currently conducting a separate 45-day trial using DJI manufactured drones housed in two docks located atop the central police station parking structure. Aerodome integrates with public safety databases operated by Flock Safety.

One advantage of Aerodome’s setup is redundancy, allowing one drone to remain on station while the other returns to recharge.

Seattle based Brinc Drones is also under consideration, though the company requires a year-long exclusive trial period, preventing simultaneous evaluation of other vendors. Brinc partners with Motorola for data and communications integration and uses non-DJI aircraft. Queen Creek Police Department currently uses Brinc’s system.

The evaluation comes amid growing uncertainty around DJI. On December 23, 2025, under the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, the FCC effectively blocked approval of new foreign made drone models for U.S. market entry.

Connor clarified that existing DJI drones remain legal to operate, though future approvals may face increased scrutiny.

During the Skydio demo, Gilbert identified both strengths and limitations. The autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance performed well, and the docks withstood Arizona’s extreme heat.

However, the drones’ 36 mph top speed limited pursuit effectiveness, staffing shortages left 23 percent of drone shifts uncovered, and nighttime image clarity was reduced.

Bisceglie estimated that a full 14-dock deployment could allow drones to arrive before patrol on up to 65,000 calls annually, clear more than 28,000 calls without officer dispatch, and support fire response before crews are sent.

Council members raised questions about privacy, data retention, Chinese components in U.S. made drones, and the cost of video redaction for public records. Police Chief Michael Soelberg confirmed that camera angles can be restricted to avoid private property capture and that all footage undergoes auditing before release.

DroneXL’s Take

Gilbert is not experimenting, it is stress testing the future of public safety aviation in real conditions. The numbers matter, the minutes saved matter, and the ability to cancel unnecessary dispatches matters even more.

What stands out is not the vendor race, but the town’s willingness to measure performance honestly, acknowledge limitations, and plan for scale instead of hype. Drone as First Responder is no longer a theory here, it is already changing how calls are handled, and the only real question left is which ecosystem Gilbert decides to bet on long term.

Photo credit: Gilbert PD, Skydio, Paladin, Brinc and Aerodome.