Spanning 1,954 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, with 48 sanctioned border crossing stations, there are approximately 350 million documented US-Mexico crossings each year. Within the first 7 months of 2021, officials estimated that more than 1 million people crossed the Mexico border into the US illegally. Political opinions aside, the US-Mexico border needs to be secure for many reasons. But, as has been proven, patrolling and maintaining border security has been ineffective at best.

For some time, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been investigating how drones could be of use in helping patrol the US-Mexico border. Drones allow border agents to observe greater stretches of border with less manpower. A two person team can effectively patrol miles of border with a single drone. In an ideal scenario, drones could provide 24 hours, 365 days a year coverage over the full length of the US-Mexico border. This would free up border patrol agents to concentrate their efforts at official crossing points, provide safety for agents and those trying to cross, and save the DHS a lot of money.

Some border patrol agents have access to drones that they use from time to time. However, a full-scale drone border patrol operation has been unattainable because of one major drawback. The average flight time of the small drones that would be needed for border patrol is, at best, 30 minutes. This leaves agents needing to be constantly swapping out drones and batteries, diverting their attention away from more important jobs. The R. Larry and Gerlene (Gerri) R. Snider Endowed Chair of Industrial Engineering at the University of Houston, Dr. Gino J. Lim, has proposed a solution for the limited flight time of drones for border patrol.

Dr. Lim specializes in engineering optimization solutions for large-scale decision making problems in fields like transportation, healthcare, and microgrids. Looking to optimize drones for border patrol, the DHS contacted Dr. Lim. In February of 2022, he released his findings on how the DHS could optimally use drones to patrol the US-Mexico border.

The first step would be to continue using inexpensive small drones. Next, the key in making border patrol drones viable would be to connect them to what Dr. Lim calls an E-line. This is an onboard wireless electric battery charging system. Dr. Lim trialed the E-line drone system along a 22.8 mile stretch of border between two border crossings in the Cochise County limits of Arizona.

He set up several E-line stations along the path uploaded to the drone’s coordinates. The drones then continuously flew along this path, without needing to be grounded for battery replacement. As explained in Dr. Lim’s paper, “the batteries connected along the E-lines use a renewable energy source to store and produce electricity. The stored electricity is wirelessly transmitted to a drone’s battery through E-lines’ inverter device, coiled lines, and the drone’s rectifier device consecutively.”

Using drones supported by the E-line system, Dr. Lim proposes that drones could fully support border patrol operations. The system is yet to be implemented, as this was the first trial of an extended range border patrolling drone system. But, as Dr. Lim states in his paper, “Smart border patrol using small-size drones may provide significant help in patrolling areas inaccessible to patrol agents, reduce agent response time, and increase the safety of patrol agents working in dangerous regions.”