Doral Police Deploy Parrot ANAFI at Cadillac Championship

The Doral Police Department used last week’s return of the PGA Tour to Trump National Doral to debut its new drone unit under real operational pressure, as Local 10 reported. Two Parrot ANAFI drones took to the skies over the Cadillac Championship as officers tested real-time aerial surveillance in front of tens of thousands of fans.

A $40,000 Investment Takes Flight

Doral PD received $40,000 in state funding to purchase the two-drone fleet, according to Police Chief Edwin Lopez, who demonstrated the new technology at the event on Thursday, April 30.

At roughly $20,000 per aircraft, that budget is consistent with what Florida agencies are currently paying for state-compliant Parrot hardware under the procurement rules that have reshaped the state’s public safety drone market.

Florida law prohibits state and local government agencies from purchasing drones manufactured by “foreign countries of concern,” a designation that removes DJI and Autel from the public-sector market entirely.

Approved manufacturers include Skydio, Parrot, Teal Drones, Altavian, and Vantage Robotics. Parrot’s ANAFI USA series, which runs between roughly $7,000 and $13,000 per unit depending on the edition, fits comfortably within Doral PD’s per-unit budget and is among the most widely deployed platforms at Florida law enforcement agencies operating under the ban.

The department’s lead drone pilot, Officer John Medina, described what aerial coverage actually changes about patrol work. “People may be leaving a bag or a box somewhere where it shouldn’t be on the side of the road, or in a pathway,” Medina said. “Any kind of fights that may be going on, public disturbance, we can fly and get there before any officers on the ground will be there.”

Drones Over the Blue Monster

The timing was deliberate. The Cadillac Championship is the PGA Tour’s first Signature Event at Trump National Doral in a decade, drawing 72 players to compete for a $20 million purse on the Blue Monster course. It’s a magnet for large crowds, media attention, and dignitaries — including President Trump, who attended the final round on Sunday.

Chief Lopez described the operational picture from the command center. “We are monitoring rooftops, surrounding areas, intersections around the community, not only for the players but any dignitaries that visit, any folks that may have threats,” he said. The drones streamed live video to both a fixed command center and directly to a cellphone when needed.

Doral Mayor Christi Fraga framed the investment as preparation for a packed calendar ahead. “Having eyes from above really can help us zoom in and not only identify a person if we need to, but find someone if we need to,” she said. The city is expecting several more high-profile events in 2026, and aerial surveillance is now a permanent part of the security toolkit.

What the Parrot ANAFI USA Brings to the Field

The Parrot ANAFI USA is a French-designed, Massachusetts-manufactured drone built specifically for public safety and government use. It carries a triple-sensor payload: two 21-megapixel visual cameras, a FLIR Boson 320 thermal sensor, and a stabilized 32x zoom system that can resolve detail from nearly 3 miles out. The whole package weighs 1.1 lbs and deploys in under 55 seconds.

Flight time is 32 minutes per battery, and the platform transmits up to 2.5 miles from the controller. It’s rated IP53 for weather resistance and operates in temperatures from just below -30°F to 122°F. All data is encrypted on the SD card by default using AES-XTS 512-bit encryption, and nothing is shared with external servers unless the operator explicitly opts in. For a department monitoring dignitaries at a high-profile event, that data security posture matters.

One detail worth noting: footage from the event showed the controller screen displaying the label “ANAFI UK,” which typically indicates a regional firmware variant within Parrot’s ANAFI platform family, not a different aircraft.

The ANAFI USA is the NDAA-compliant, government-procurement-eligible model and the only one that would satisfy Florida’s procurement requirements. Doral PD has not officially confirmed the exact edition, but the platform is clearly from Parrot’s ANAFI USA line.

The Broader Context in Florida

Doral’s deployment is part of a much larger wave of Florida law enforcement building out aerial programs under the state’s domestic procurement mandate. St. Cloud PD launched a full Drone as First Responder program using Skydio X10s late last year, projected at $890,000 over five years. Orlando City Council approved 11 Skydio drones across nine rooftop docking stations for $6.83 million this past February. Miami Beach PD has also expanded its aerial operations in recent months.

The Parrot ANAFI USA offers a different value proposition than Skydio’s dock-based approach. It’s a backpack-deployable, officer-carried system rather than an automated first responder that launches from a rooftop. For a department like Doral, which handles special events, traffic, and search operations rather than high-volume 911 call response, that flexibility makes sense. You don’t need a docking station to monitor a golf tournament.

The harder problem is one every Florida department faces. The state grounded an estimated $200 million in functional DJI hardware when its procurement ban took full effect, and replaced it with $25 million in funding. Departments have been absorbing that gap ever since, paying more per unit for technology that, in the case of Parrot, is genuinely capable but represents a real budget trade-off versus what the same money would buy on the open market.

DroneXL’s Take

Here’s what I actually think: Doral PD made a smart call here, both on the platform and the timing. The Parrot ANAFI USA is a legitimate piece of kit. It’s not as flashy as Skydio’s autonomous DFR setup, but for event security and patrol augmentation, a backpack-ready drone that deploys in under a minute and streams thermal video from nearly 3 miles out is exactly what Officer Medina needs.

The “ANAFI UK” label on that controller screen is a firmware quirk, not a procurement irregularity — but it’s the kind of detail worth surfacing because it shows how confusing Parrot’s own branding can be, even to people in the field using the product.

The bigger story is still the one behind every Florida drone purchase: these departments are buying capable hardware at a premium because state policy eliminated their cheapest option. Doral’s $40,000 for two Parrot drones is a reasonable investment. It just would have been a better one under a different regulatory framework.

Photo credit: Local 10