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SINGAPORE: Singapore’s drone industry is taking off, and more and more corporations are turning to unmanned aerial cars for infrastructure inspections and deliveries.
In April, newly created F-Drones became the first company to deliver via drones here. He signed a one-year deal with shipping giant Eastern Pacific Shipping that began with the delivery of Marina South Pier to a shipment anchored 2.7 km from the coast.
Another start-up, Aerolion Technologies, has secured agency investment to expand a construction cleaning drone. It also recently received contact with water company PUB to deploy drones for channel inspections.
And last Thursday (August 13), foodpanda announced its partnership with ST Engineering to verify the use of drones for food delivery, while transporting five packages of ayam penyet to a shipment 3 km from the coast.
The Singapore Unmanned Aircraft Systems Community (SG UAS), which represents the interests of the nascent industry, has noted that the number of member organizations increased from 22 last year to 39 today.
This is expected to continue to increase, said Sia Kheng Yok, executive director of the Aerospace Industries Association (Singapore), which includes the SG UAS community.
Members come with UAS service providers, manufacturers, suppliers, higher education institutes and end users in Singapore.
The network plays a role in supporting progress and market access, as well as in the development of criteria and political promotion. Your amenities come with an interior check-up at JTC’s Seletar Aerospace Park to demonstrate and check drones.
DRONES AND THE PANDEMIC
The use of drones makes it imaginable to carry out many responsibilities more efficiently, Sia said, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic has generated greater interest in drones.
” (They) must operate remotely in height, in confined spaces and at a distance, without hitting human operators in a difficult position. Integrated into sensors and symbol research software, they can build human paints in areas,” Sia said.
“During COVID-19, the AU’s ability to deploy in remote operations generated renewed interest – for crowd monitoring, warnings, temperature measurement, remote PPE delivery and laboratory testing,” he said.
“User agents have the vital merit of minimizing face-to-face contact and the need for human interaction while performing tasks, allowing companies and public agencies to supply critical supplies while reducing the threat of exposure to the virus.”
In April, the National Parks Council said it had deployed 30 drones to monitor crowds in some parks and grass spaces for certain visitors to join the measures away.
Singapore police also announced in May the use of drones to patrol commercial spaces during the country’s “break-up” period.
That same month, Singapore-based Drone Solutions Services launched a program called “Drones in the COVID-19 Era” to inspire the use of drones for purposes such as pandemic surveillance.
The company’s products come with drones with cameras and speakers, as well as captive drone stations, which connect drones to an uninterrupted portable power source.
This would allow drones to stay in flight for hours to monitor crowds, being limited to a battery life of between 30 and 40 minutes, said Drone Solutions CEO Gianluca Salone.
Another forward-looking domain is the use of drones in unmanned search and rescue missions, said Salone, who has two decades of experience in humanitarian paintings with organizations such as the United Nations.
In herbal disasters, for example, drones can be provided with devices capable of placing other people on their cell phones even in the absence of coverage, he said.
Singapore can simply serve as a hub from which such drone operations can be deployed in the region, he suggested.
Salone, who is a water and environment engineer, said he was also in talks with agencies on underwater drones, which can be used to perform maintenance paints in places like the Marine Dam, as well as for oil debris and spills. . Water.
CHALLENGES AND LIMITATIONS
However, Sia noted that there are still technological limitations in drone performance, adding restrictions to payload weight and communications network bandwidth and coverage.
“A limitation at the moment is the importance of ensuring the use of airspace through AU and piloted aircraft,” he said, adding that complicated unmanned air traffic control (TMU) systems are still being developed.
In recent years, drones have disrupted airport operations in cities around the world.
In 2018, drones interrupted flights from Gatwick Airport in London for 3 days, affecting 140,000 passengers and 1,000 flights.
Last year, operations with unauthorized drones near Singapore’s Changi Airport hit 38 flights and halted operations on the runway for 10 hours.
Implementing a UTM formula can help law enforcement agencies identify the precise location of unauthorized drones, rather than having to locate them visually, said Ryan Lee, nova Systems Asia’s executive leader.
In 2018, the Singapore Ministry of Transport and the Singapore Civil Aviation Authority granted a consortium led through Nova Systems an allocation to adopt and advance UTM technologies here.
Its researchers spent two years and sought measures to safely customize and expand several UAS operations in Singapore’s densely populated urban environment.
Last December, it stated that it had indeed completed the time phase of flight testing for UTM in Singapore, adding one of the telecommunications network and the operational adequacy of the 4G and 5G networks.
While a UTM formula would manage drone flight plans, as well as similar traditional air traffic control handles that of piloted aircraft, it’s more complex, Lee said.
The formula not only handles several drones on other routes, but also takes into account pitfalls such as buildings, trees and even birds, he said.
The use of such UTM systems can even see drones flying beyond the coast of Singapore, Sia said.
“Such MMMs, user IDs or AU tracking devices will be harmonized around the world to standardize generation and even facilitate cross-border flights one day,” he added.