ST Engineering, Sumitomo Corporation and Skyports created a consortium to provide Unmanned Aircraft (UA) services for shore-to-ship parcel delivery in Singapore.
Each member will exploit their respective operational and technological capabilities to expand the use of autonomous UA for the deliveries of maritime essentials to vessels at anchorage.
During a nine-month pilot programme, the consortium will engage key customers for maritime UA deliveries, with the goal of establishing a UA delivery network capable of carrying parcel payloads up to 10kg.
ST Engineering will provide the UA technology, with Skyports jointly conducting the Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flight operations with ST Engineering.
Sumitomo Corporation will provide go-to-market support, including their own fleet of vessels, and all three partners in the consortium will conduct business development activities by using their existing maritime network.
ST Engineering has been testing and developing autonomous solutions to enable BVLOS UA operations for shore-to-ship delivery in close collaboration with regulators and industry partners.
Through funding support from the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore’ (CAAS) Call-for-Proposals, the Group recently completed the initial development of an UA system for shore-to-ship parcel delivery based on its in-house DroNet solution.
UA operations can significantly slash response time and speed up turnaround for shore-to-ship delivery, in addition to reducing logistics costs.
Replacing launch boat delivery with UA also helps to reduce carbon emissions and contribute to the maritime industry’s overall efforts to operate sustainably.
UA Systems have evolved rapidly in recent years to emerge as safe and robust alternatives to traditionally labour- and time-intensive missions
stated Teong Soo Soon, VP & Head of UA Systems at ST Engineering, with Ichiro Tatara, GM, Commercial Aviation Department at Sumitomo, adding that “UA systems are a potential infrastructure enabling sustainable transportation.”
