DHS to test unmanned aircraft for variety of applications.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security this week issued a call for unmanned systems makers to participate in a program that will ultimately determine their safety and performance for use in first responder, law enforcement and border security situations, Network World Layer 8 reports.

In a twist that will certainly raise some eyebrows,  the program’s results  of the ironically named program — The Robotic Aircraft for Public Safety (RAPS) — will remain unavailable to the public, which considering how involved the actual public may be with these drones is shall we say, unfortunate.

According to the DHS, the RAPS program will feature flight tests to evaluate unmanned systems “using key performance parameters under a wide variety of simulated but realistic and relevant real-world operational scenarios, such as law enforcement operations, search and rescue, and fire and hazardous material spill response.”

Watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office recently issued a report saying worries over national security, privacy, and the interference in Global Positioning-System (GPS) signals have not been resolved and may influence acceptance of routine access for unmanned aircraft in the national airspace system.