Automated police drones will begin flying to 911 calls near Potomac this summer.

On Monday, the Montgomery County Police Department announced an expansion of its Drone as First Responder program with new dock-based stations across the county.

Bethesda and Wheaton will receive equipment upgrades this summer, MCPD said. Those two sites are the closest to Potomac in the department's six-location network.

Under the upgraded system, each of the six drone sites will house two docking stations. When a 911 call comes in, a drone launches automatically from its dock, flies to the scene, streams live video back to officers and returns to recharge. The department has received FAA approval to fly the drones beyond the operator's line of sight, eliminating the need for a ground observer at each launch.

All flights are controlled remotely from the county's Joint Operations Center at Public Safety Headquarters.

The drones carry the call sign "RAVEN" and use the Skydio X10 airframe. They can fly up to 45 mph, reach 400 feet altitude and stay airborne for 40 minutes. An onboard camera provides both daytime zoom and thermal imaging for low-visibility conditions.

Where it's live now

MCPD is rolling out the dock system in phases. The first phase covers Downtown Silver Spring, White Oak, the Gaithersburg/Montgomery Village area and Germantown. The Germantown system is already operational, the department said.

No specific date has been announced for when the Bethesda and Wheaton sites will go live beyond "this summer."

How it's been working

The program launched Nov. 20, 2023. Before the dock upgrades, it was already showing results: as of September, drones arrived at a scene before officers 68% of the time, according to county data. That figure predates the automated docking stations now being installed. The most common calls involved theft or larceny and suspicious circumstances.

"We base a lot of what we do on transparency, community input, and that's kind of why we've had success," Special Operations Lt. Ed Drew said in a September 2025 interview. "We're not trying to be tricky about it, any of this stuff."

Baltimore County Police cited MCPD's system as a reference when planning their own drone response program.

Privacy protections

MCPD said the drones are deployed only in response to 911 calls or to assist officers already at an incident. They are not used for surveillance patrols. Additional safeguards include:

  • No microphones on the aircraft
  • No facial recognition technology
  • Cameras pointed toward the horizon while traveling to and from calls
  • Video stored under the same retention rules as body-worn camera footage

The department maintains a public dashboard at dashboard.dronesense.com/mcpddfr that logs every flight, including location and the reason for the call.

Residents can contact MCPD's non-emergency line at 301-279-8000 to report concerns.