Airbus Helicopters and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) have signed an agreement to conduct ‘final-mile’ drone delivery trials – named the Skyways Project – in large highly urbanised environments such as Singapore.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to conduct Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Proof-of-Concept Trials was signed on the side lines of the Singapore Air Show today. The Skyways Experimentation Project aims to develop an airborne infrastructure solution to address the sustainability and efficiency of final-mile parcel delivery business in large urban environments.

This infrastructure will be operated as an integrated system that comprises the following main components: Safe and secure aerial corridors, unmanned aircraft (UA), operation management system of the UA fleet, automated parcel stations, as well as overall communication system.

The project covers two separate UAS trials which will be implemented in two phases: The first will see Airbus work with the National University of Singapore (NUS) to establish a network of parcel stations on the NUS campus. This network will enable users to send important and urgent items such as documents via a UAS to other parts of the campus. It also serves as a supply and distribution interface for suppliers across Singapore to deliver their goods via UAS to customers across the NUS campus.

Depending on the outcome of the first phase, the second will cover delivery of goods such as urgent medicine, oil samples and spare electronic parts from a parcel station located at the Singapore coast to ships anchored off shore.

Airbus intends to set up a Special Purpose Company in Singapore to conduct the Skyways Project and to prepare for the next steps. Commercialisation plans that might be derived from the project will be executed from Singapore with Singapore as the Asia Pacific headquarters for this business.

This UAS initiative is led by Airbus, and facilitated by the inter-agency UAS Committee, chaired by the Ministry of Transport, Singapore. The UAS Committee was set up early last year to encourage the use of UAS to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of agencies’ operations. The UAS Committee has facilitated UAS trials by public agencies, as well as private sector companies.

“We need to prepare for the greater use of unmanned aircraft in our urban environment to help address the new and future needs of our society. We want to facilitate their use by industry and the public sector, and also hobbyists, but we must at the same time ensure that the regulatory regime keeps apace with these changes to enable such uses, whilst ensuring public and aviation safety and security,” said Kevin Shum, director-general of CAAS.

Jean-Brice Dumont, executive VP, engineering, Airbus Helicopters, added: “Airbus Helicopters’ expertise in vertical lift solutions puts us in the best position to turn UAS into a business reality while ensuring their safe operation in dense urban environments.

“Although many UAS services are already common today, efficient and reliable applications in the logistics industry are still in their early stages. Our vision is the seamless integration of UAS into logistics networks and daily life in a safe, secure and economically efficient manner. Airbus strongly believes in the viability of the Skyways project which will help turn consumer services unimagined only a decade ago into a reality very soon.”