13 February 2022
Singapore

ST Engineering, Sumitomo Corporation (SC) and Skyports today announced the formation of a consortium to provide Unmanned Aircraft (UA) services for shore-to-ship parcel delivery in Singapore.

Each consortium 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 using its end-to-end solution – DroNet; Skyports will jointly conduct the Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flight operations with ST Engineering; while SC will provide go-to-market support, including their own fleet of vessels.  All three partners in the consortium will undertake business development activities by leveraging their existing maritime network.

Currently the only way to transport anything from shore to ship is via launch crafts. This project attempts to utilise drones as a potential transportation channel. If successful, this will be a commercial first in the world where autonomous drones would be utilised to deliver items from shore to ship.