Drones to Patrol U.S. Coasts

The U.S. will reveal its inaugural version of an unmanned maritime aircraft to search for smugglers next week, according to the Customs and Border Protection’s office of air and marine operations. Though the agency already uses drones for surveillance on land borders with Canada and Mexico, this is the first that will patrol the ocean with radar technology as opposed to the visual tools of the land planes. “This one has the capacity of detecting vessels in the water,” a spokesman for the agency said of the new Predator B. The drones will be tested in the eastern Caribbean and are expected to be completely operational later in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean.