It�s an Auld Lang Syne of the times: For the first time, a police drone will be keeping watch over the New Year�s Eve celebration in New York�s Times Square.

The unmanned eye-in-the-sky is the latest wrinkle in the New York City Police Department�s ever-evolving plan to keep revelers safe.

About 7,000 police officers will be on duty for Monday night�s festivities in Times Square, including counterterrorism teams with long guns and bomb-sniffing dogs. Police cars and sand-filled sanitation trucks will be positioned to stop vehicles from driving into the crowd.

And, above it all, a remote-controlled quadcopter will be giving police a unique view of the merriment – and any potential mayhem.

It�s the first time the NYPD is sending up a drone for a big event.

�That�s going to give us a visual aid and the flexibility of being able to move a camera to a certain spot with great rapidity through a tremendous crowd,� Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller said.

Police Commissioner James O�Neill said there are no known, credible threats to the city or the New Year�s Eve event. He encouraged spectators to remain vigilant and to alert officers if they suspect something is awry.

�There�s probably going to be a cop within 10 feet of you,� Miller said. �If you see something, you can go right to them directly.�

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday that the city is expecting �up to 2 million people in Times Square itself� for the ball drop, repeating a figure often cited by city officials, organizers and television broadcasters.

Crowd-size experts say it�s impossible to cram that many people into the area, a bow-tie-shaped zone running five blocks between Broadway and 7th Avenue, and that the real total is likely fewer than 100,000.

No matter how many people actually show up, they�ll all be screened with metal detectors at security checkpoints and funneled into penned off areas to prevent overcrowding.

Umbrellas, backpacks and coolers are banned, but those kitschy �2019� glasses are most definitely allowed in. And there won�t be any popping champagne at midnight. The NYPD says alcohol is strictly prohibited.

That might be for the best. There aren�t any bathrooms, and anyone leaving the secure area won�t be allowed back to their original spot. That means they�ll risk missing the ball drop or having to squint hard to see it from a faraway vantage point.

Like last year, the NYPD is embedding detectives in hotels around Times Square in an attempt to thwart a potential attack like the one in Las Vegas last year in which a gunman shooting from a hotel room killed 59 people at an outdoor country music festival.

Police are also harnessing new technology to detect drones that aren�t authorized to fly.

The NYPD�s drone adds to a vast array of visual surveillance that includes more than 1,200 fixed cameras and feeds from police helicopters circling above.

The department started using drones this month. It says they�ll mainly be used for search-and-rescue missions, documenting crime scenes and monitoring large events.

Several of the NYPD�s drones are equipped with thermal-imaging and 3D-mapping capabilities and strong camera lenses that can greatly magnify a subject.

For safety, Chief of Department Terence Monahan said the New Year�s Eve drone will be tethered to a building and flown in a cordoned-off area so that no one gets hurt if it happens to fall. The drone will never fly directly above the crowd, he said.

Unlike a helicopter, a drone is small and makes little noise. Between the sounds of performers and the confetti that�ll be swirling at midnight, Monahan said some spectators might not even notice it.

�Once it�s up in the air, it will probably be hard to see,� he said.

(AP)