This article appeared in The Digital News Asia on 24 February 2022.

• Aerodynes believes low-latency 4G drones will be elevated to new heights on 5G
• Opportunity to evaluate & co-develop innovative use cases to meet market needs

5G-enabled drone technology has been hailed as a game changer for a host of sectors, with the potential to significantly improve cost efficiencies, make business operations safer and more efficient.

In recognition of this potential, Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB) and Aerodyne Technology Sdn Bhd recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore the development of 5G, with a particular focus on drone and data technologies. For Aerodyne, which is Malaysian based, this has been long in coming. The global drone services leader has been testing and developing drone 5G solutions for the past 18 months in other countries.

The collaboration leverages the parties’ respective strengths in 5G technology and infrastructure, as well as drone and data analytics capabilities. It presents an opportunity to evaluate and co-develop innovative 5G use cases, with a view to identifying strategic market needs for those use cases.

Drones and its associated technologies have compelling potential use cases across a host of industries. The availability of ultrafast 5G speeds as well as a supportive cloud computing infrastructure could enable next-generation, AI-powered “swarm intelligence systems” – a host of drones working in unison to collect multiple datapoints at a time. Applications include precision agriculture, with drones working to increase crop yields and profitability for farmers.

“5G will take Industry 4.0 to the next level by facilitating unprecedented levels of flexibility, productivity and efficiency. By enabling Aerodyne to deploy their drones in a 5G environment, more innovative use cases can be further developed and showcased to multiple industries. This would encourage faster adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) and A.I. solutions while building an inclusive digital ecosystem,” said Prem Kumar Menon, Head of Enterprise Strategy at DNB.

Drones have gained popularity in recent years as viable tools for both commercial and governmental applications in agriculture, construction, energy, mining, logistics and many other industrial sectors. Having both pilot and drone connected to an underlying 5G network will see drones being able to serve as precision tools in these verticals, operating with unprecedented levels of accuracy and near imperceptible delays.

Founder and Group CEO of Aerodyne, Kamarul A. Muhamed said, “5G is a game-changer in the world of connected drones. Our low-latency 4G-connected drones will be elevated to new heights on the 5G network. This opens up a virtually unlimited range of industrial applications and will contribute to the accelerated digitalisation of Malaysia’s industries.”

Aerodyne has been developing unmanned aerial drone solutions along with software-as-aservice (SaaS) offerings for a number of fields including aerial data intelligence gathering, emergency response and surveillance, natural resource management, intelligent resource management among others.