- Hi-tech Singapore is planning to roll out a swarm of drones for tasks that include delivering parcels, inspecting buildings and providing security.
- Companies have already started testing the devices for commercial use, mainly in an area of over 200 hectares (500 acres) dotted with high-rise buildings and shopping malls, specially designated by the government for the trials.
- It is part of the affluent city’s drive to embrace technological innovation, as well as an effort to tackle a manpower shortage in a country of just 5.6 million, which relies on foreign migrant workers in many low-paying sectors.
- Commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles is already taking off around the world, in areas as diverse as cropspraying and surveying for insurance claims, but Singapore’s push represents a particularly ambitious bet on the technology.
- “Today’s existing building inspection process is extremely slow, expensive, tedious, prone to accidents, fatigue and human error,”
- Such inspections are typically carried out by workers from South or Southeast Asia, who hang precariously outside buildings on platforms suspended by ropes.
- The new system will see high-resolution images taken by drones and analysed to check for defects, with inspections taking a few days rather than a few weeks, as they do at the moment. Robotic guards
- Drones are also being tested as robotic guards.
- . A black drone is deployed, which chases an intruder while transmitting live images that direct security officers towards him to make an arrest.
- Tests have also been carried out for drone parcel delivery while a hospital operator plans to use the devices to transport blood samples and specimens between its hospitals and central laboratory.
- But transforming the futuristic vision into reality faces hurdles. The prospect of having a drone suddenly whizz by your apartment or office has sparked privacy concerns in the land-scarce city.
- Angry Singaporeans called for police to investigate after a video circulated on social media in September showing a recreational drone flying close to a residential building,
- people still had “misconceptions” about drones: “Some might view it as a spying vehicle, others might think drones are out there to do harm.” Safety concerns
- commercial drones present more challenges when it comes to safety, as they often fly over longer distances well beyond the sight of their human “pilots”.
- This requires flight paths to be planned and the use of private communications channels, while takeoff and landing sites must be built.
- “The main challenge is to address the risks to people on the ground and the risks to airplanes flying in the air, and the risks of colliding with a building,”
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