As envisioned by Honda R&D Americas’ advanced design studio in Pasadena, Calif., the future Honda CHP Drone Squad includes four-wheel Auto-Drones, like cars, and two-wheel Moto-Drones, like motorcycles. The proposal offers a future where the Auto-Drone functions as something of a command vehicle — manned or unmanned — that deploys Moto-Drones, even while on the move. The Moto-Drones could be rigged for a variety of different response or rescue tasks. While such vehicles might be decades from reality, the flexibility of this strategy could offer companies that built both types of vehicles an advantage in securing government contracts.

At the BMW DesignworksUSA studio in Newbury Park, Calif., designers dreamed up the E-Patrol (Human-Drone Pursuit Vehicle). In this arrangement, the officer and drone would work in harmony, like today’s officers and their K-9 partners. The BMW drone team would be able to deploy a flying drone, which resembles a high-tech Jet Ski cruise missile, or one of a pair of unicyclelike robotic vehicles to chase lawbreakers. And if the suspect doesn’t pull over? In the E-Patrol vision, the BMW designers say, their drone would disable the vehicle with an electromagnetic impulse.

The Subaru Highway Automated Response Concept vehicles, developed by Subaru Research and Development in Japan and designed specifically for Hawaii, are powered by renewable energy — and they have aquatic capability. “The cutting-edge SHARC patrol vehicles will provide an innovative, affordable and environmentally conscious solution for 24-hour highway monitoring,” the designers say.

The Volt Squad, dreamed up at General Motors’ Advanced Design Center in North Hollywood, Calif., is a set of future patrol vehicles that would take advantage of the propulsion system engineered for the Chevrolet Volt. The squad is composed of three different types of vehicles that still contain human officers. Each type is specially designed to observe, pursue or engage — the last term left menacingly undefined.