“The Government of Malawi, in partnership with UNICEF, is looking for companies to test their humanitarian drone applications in the drone test corridor. This is an invitation to industry, universities, and individuals to test a potential use case in the main areas of Imagery, Connectivity and Transport to improve the lives of Malawi’s children!”

What is the humanitarian drone test corridor?

The new Humanitarian Drone Testing Corridor in Malawi is an exciting innovation that UNICEF has pioneered in partnership with the Government of Malawi. In December 2016, the Government of Malawi and UNICEF announced an agreement to create a testing corridor for humanitarian use of drones.

In June 2017, the Drone Corridor was opened by Malawi’s Minister of Transport and Public Works, Jappie Mhango and UNICEF Malawi Representative Johannes Wedenig.

The test corridor is the world largest test area with over 5000 square km – and allowing operations up to 400 m above ground level – which is specifically dedicated to the humanitarian and development uses for drones and the only dedicated unmanned flight testing space in the continent of Africa.

The Malawi drone test corridor is open to industry, universities, and individuals who can apply and test a potential use case in one of the three main areas as defined below. The drone corridor in Malawi is an opportunity for companies to provide global leadership in the emerging technology field of drones for humanitarian and development work, while simultaneously developing local experience in Malawi.

The corridor is designed to provide a controlled platform for the private sector, universities, and other partners to explore how drones can be used in scenarios that will benefit marginalized communities. All data generated by the flights will be used to inform the Government of Malawi’s plans for the use of drones in multiple scenarios. This is particularly important due to frequent flooding in some areas of Malawi and challenges in transport infrastructure.

This test corridor in Malawi is the first of its kind in Africa and will generate increased interest in Malawian technological infrastructure. Likewise, it will increase capacity amongst Malawian technologists and entrepreneurial students in this emerging area to remain competitive.

Find out more in detail here.

What does the drone test corridor look like?

The corridor has a 40km radius (80km diameter) and is centered on Kasungu Aerodrome (with a runway length of about 1200m) in central Malawi, about an hour and a half drive from the capital city of Lilongwe.

Kasungu is home to a district hospital and a variety of rural health clinics in remote areas, enabling the testing of real humanitarian use cases such as the transport of vaccines, medical supplies or blood samples.

The air corridor details were determined in consultation with the Malawi Department of Civil Aviation and in line with the government’s new regulatory framework.

Specifications include:

• Around 5000 km² testing ground
• Altitude limit at 400 metres above ground

Testing beyond visual line of sight is possible All solutions and use cases tested in the corridor will have to abide by the UNICEF innovation principles – meaning that they should be open data, shareable, and designed for scale.

How to find your use case

The corridor will facilitate testing in three main areas:

1. Imagery – generating and analyzing aerial images for development and during humanitarian crises, including for situation monitoring in floods and earthquakes;
2. Connectivity – exploring the possibility for UAVs to extend Wi-Fi or cell phone signals across difficult terrain, particularly in emergencies;
3. Transport – delivery of small low weight supplies such as emergency medical supplies, vaccines and samples for laboratory diagnosis, including for HIV testing.

All drone tests must be fully vetted by UNICEF and the Government of Malawi Civil Aviation Authority.

UNICEF’s mandate dictates that there should be no development for military or defence purposes. Companies must be vetted by our corporate screening process which will eliminate those with military ties. Should you have any further queries please contact us here.

Third party solutions (e.g. working on ADS-B transmitters) are welcome to apply, provided that they apply as a consortium or team together with UAS manufacturer – or bring they own drones.

What is the timeline?

The corridor will run for 1-2 years and interest parties may apply on a rolling basis. We expect multiple rounds of testing periods, followed by publishing the lessons learned from the endeavour.

How can I test my drone application in the corridor?

If you are interested, please click the ‘Apply Here’ button below and you will be redirected to a short application form. We will contact you in due course to enable a first exchange of views.

Please note, that the participation in Malawi and the corridor must be entirely self-funded. Participants are also requested to teach a 1-2 week workshop for local Malawian entrepreneurs and engineers about drone technology.

Contact us

For media enquiries please contact: Alissa Collins acollins@unicef.org
For other enquiries please contact us here.

Previously:

The First Humanitarian Drone Corridor in Africa 

How do we know if drones are useful if we can’t test them? And how do we guarantee that they are safe without designated testing zones? The new Drone Corridor in Malawi is an exciting innovation that UNICEF has pioneered in partnership with the Government of Malawi. In December 2016, after lengthy negotiations, the Government of Malawi and UNICEF announced an agreement to create a testing corridor for humanitarian use of drones. This testing corridor is the only space in the world specifically dedicated to humanitarian and development uses for drones, and the only testing space in the continent of Africa. The Malawi drone testing corridor will be open to industry, universities, and individuals who apply and meet the air corridor criteria. The UNICEF drone corridor in Malawi is an opportunity for UNICEF to provide global leadership in the emerging technology field of drones for humanitarian and development work, while simultaneously developing particular local experience in Malawi. The corridor is designed to provide a controlled platform for the private sector, universities, and other partners to explore how UAS can be used in scenarios that will benefit marginalized communities. All data generated by the flights would be used to inform the GoM’s plans for the use of drones in multiple scenarios. In Malawi this is particularly important due to frequent flooding in some areas and sustained challenges in maintaining transport infrastructure. Creating this testing corridor in Malawi will be the first of its kind in Africa and would generate positive publicity and increased interest in Malawian technological infrastructure. Likewise, it will increase capacity amongst Malawian technologists and entrepreneurial students in this emerging area to remain competitive.

The corridor will be located at the Kasungu Airport in Kasungu District with a runway length of about 1200m. Kasungu is about an hour and a half drive from the capital city of Lilongwe. All drone tests must be fully vetted by UNICEF and the Government of Malawi Civil Aviation Authority.

If you’d like more information or have any questions, contact us here.

January 29, 2019

Graham Brown, CEO and Anne-Lise Scaillierez, Director of ARPAS-UK had the honour to attend the All Party Parliamentary Group for Drones meeting in the Palace of Westminster on January 29.

Elaine Whyte, UK Drones Leader at PwC, Dr Yoge Patel, CEO at Blue Bear Systems Research Ltd and WO2 Simon Barker, Royal Artillery Trials & Development Unit, RATDU were guest speakers at the event.

With the upcoming review of UK strategy and priorities in Aviation in mind, it is a source of great satisfaction to attest that highly knowledgeable and influential people are supporting the drone industry, among MPs, government officials and industry players.

One of the main challenges to industry growth is certainly social acceptance. The Gatwick incident did not help in that regard. But showcasing the many use cases demonstrating the benefits of drones, as well as demonstrating high standard of professionalism of pilots and operators such as those adhering to ARPAS and its Code of Conduct, can support a more balanced perception.

The UK has been a pioneering country in aviation and it has all the assets and skills to succeed in the future of unmanned aviation!

Image copyrightSALA LEWIS/WORLD BANK

A crowd has gathered on Juma, an island in Tanzania’s Lake Victoria, the world’s second largest freshwater lake.

The local people are standing behind makeshift nets which cordon off an area where a small group of engineers are consulting laptops and smartphones.

Along with representatives from organisations such as the United Nations children’s agency Unicef, the World Food Programme and the World Bank, they are looking up at the skies, waiting for a drone to land.

The drone is being flown within 3km (1.8 miles) of the local airport in Mwanza and, with air traffic control monitoring it, this is a sign of how Africa is leaping ahead in terms of regulation and vision around unmanned flying vehicles.

The flight is part of a conference called the Lake Victoria Challenge (LVC) which aims to make commercial drone flights in East Africa the norm, bringing goods and services to communities such as Juma, which are cut off from the mainland.

The people here are used to seeing aircraft overhead but, aside from the fishermen in their reed boats, few leave the island.

Ferries are infrequent, costly and can be dangerous – a high-profile ferry disaster left more than 200 dead in September 2017 – while speedboats, which take only half an hour to get to the mainland, are prohibitively expensive.

Permission to fly

Image copyrightSALA LEWIS/WORLD BANK

Fishing is the main livelihood but this too can be dangerous, with hundreds of fishermen from Juma and surrounding islands dying every year in crocodile attacks and drownings.

Virtually no-one learns to swim, and those that do face the dangers of the lake, which is riddled with parasitic worms which can lead to the deadly disease bilharzia.

There is a light buzzing sound as the drone appears in the distance, flanked by local birds fascinated by their hi-tech companion. It lands safely to cheers and clapping from the gathered Westerners and bemused looks from the locals.

Given that Mwanza, where the drone took off, is only 22km away, this may seem an unremarkable event, but testing a system controlled by air traffic control is a daring move.

Image copyrightSALA LEWIS/WORLD BANK

In the wake of the recent chaos at Gatwick Airport, where a drone grounded hundreds of flights for three days just before Christmas, getting air traffic control involved in drone flights makes a lot of sense.

East Africa is leading the way in terms of forward-thinking and world-leading drone regulation. Rwanda boasts the world’s first cargo drone delivery service with Silicon Valley start-up Zipline, which is delivering blood to the country’s hospitals thanks to a deal with the government which gave its drones the status of government flights.

And in Malawi, a drone test corridor for humanitarian purposes was launched in 2017 in a partnership between Unicef and the government.

Image copyrightSALA LEWIS/WORLD BANK

The Tanzanian civil aviation authority, which gave permission for the drone to fly so close to the airport, wants to make the country drone-friendly while keeping airspace safe.

It has developed a framework that requires potential drone pilots to apply for licences. The individual or group is then vetted by other authorities, including the intelligence services.

And there are strict rules governing flights – the Juma experiment being an exception. Normally, drones cannot fly within 3km of a domestic airport or 5km of an international airport. Drones must not fly above 500ft (152m) or weigh more than 25kg (55lbs).

“We have to have regulation in place to protect aircraft and stop terrorists and other unlawful activity,” Hamza Johari, the head of Tanzania’s Civil Aviation Authority told the BBC.

Tanzania is also in the process of setting up four civilian radars which will offer surveillance of the whole country’s airspace.

Image copyrightSALA LEWIS/WORLD BANK

The LVC is not just about showing off how drones can fly safely, it also wants to create a sustainable drone industry in Africa, bringing together humanitarian organisations, government and commercial drone companies to do so.

The World Bank – which organised the event – acknowledged the importance of involving the local community in deciding what it needs. On a visit to Juma before the test flight, residents pinpointed medicines, cash and spare parts for the village mill as their priorities.

Image copyrightSALA LEWIS/WORLD BANK

Although the aim of the LVC is to make a case for commercial drone deliveries, medicines could be the most pressing need.

Juma is lucky because it has a clinic, unlike many of the other nearby islands. However, the building is little more than a cement shed full of leaflets but virtually bereft of actual medicines. There is no antidote for snake bites or anti-rabies vaccine and it takes up to five weeks for such lifesaving supplies to arrive from the mainland.

In an emergency, a patient is taken to the mainland, which takes three hours, and those working in the clinic described medicine by drone as being “lifesaving”.

Bamboo drone

Ivan Gayton, head of Tanzania’s OpenStreetMap programme, who is acting as a safety co-ordinator at the LVC event, believes what is happening on Juma is similar to the dawn of the computer age.

Image copyrightSALA LEWIS/WORLD BANK

“We are witnessing the birth of an industry here,” he told the BBC. “Like the 1970s when the computer was transitioning from a hobby to something more professional.”

Ivan, similarly to all the drone firms taking part in the challenge, is Western, but he is convinced that the drone industry, if it is to be successful in Africa, needs to be run by Africans.

It is one of the reasons that he, along with a Tanzanian colleague at the conference, built a drone out of bamboo, made out of parts that were 3D-printed in Dar es Salaam.

Image copyrightSALA LEWIS/WORLD BANK

“It is a rickety-looking contraption, but on-board are motors, flight controller, GPS and a lithium polymer battery, so it is quite a sophisticated flight control system and it makes the case that Tanzanians can make, build and fly drones.

“The open source software is so sophisticated that it is possible to do remarkable things with limited resources and local materials.”

Zanzibar pilots

Freddy Mbuya, one of the few African drone experts at the conference, agrees.

“There has to be a business case beyond the donor sector. African businesses have to be able to set up and be profitable for drones to work in Africa,” he said.

The groundwork for this has already been laid in a mapping project in which he was involved in Zanzibar, which has been lauded around the world.

Image copyrightSALA LEWIS/WORLD BANK

“Zanzibar now has the highest density of young drone pilots anywhere in the world, and some of them have gone on to set up businesses and gain professional contracts.”

Mapping, both commercially for mining companies or governments as well as for local communities, is a vital function of drones in Africa, where only 3% of the country is mapped to local scale, he thinks.

When Juma was mapped, the results were shared with the local community.

“They were so excited to see their houses and could immediately see things they could act on, such as trash dumps that could be centralised.”

It is important that, as well as creating a community of drone pilots, Africans are equipped to assemble and repair drones, Mr Mbuya thinks.

“If the technology is purchased outside of Africa, it shouldn’t have to go back to the originating country to be repaired.”

So, while he welcomed tech firms from Europe and the US, he said that any services they offered had to be “mutually beneficial”.

“Western tech companies, especially drone companies, come to Tanzania to operate because there is a lot more freedom here. But it is vital that there is the capacity to build things locally. We cannot only use technology as a tool which is made outside of Africa.”

Image copyrightSALA LEWIS/WORLD BANK

In 2019, the second LVC will feature drone companies competing in a series of challenges, which are likely to include deliveries of goods to Juma and other islands.

Successful firms will win either cash prizes or contracts with the local Tanzanian government – the details are still being worked out.

And already word is spreading – at the end of this year’s conference, attended by a host of local dignitaries, it was announced that Tanzania’s post office intends to start using drones.

Light cargo

The technology may be ready – batteries are now more efficient meaning they can fly for longer – but the biggest problem for drones remains the limitations to what they can carry. Currently for most on the market this is no more than 2kg of weight – the equivalent to a paperback book.

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Jonathan Ledgard, the Economist’s former Africa correspondent and a drone advocate, thinks that drones will be developed in the next five to seven years that can carry up to 9kg.

“We have got the brain issues with drones sorted and there are advances in vertical take-offs and landings, plus East Africa has made enormous progress on the regulatory side so, if we can get propulsion sorted, we can rapidly scale up,” he told the BBC.

There is more to the Juma experiment than only drones, and a patch of land, adjacent to the local school, has been earmarked as a site for a possible droneport – a futuristic airport which would could become the hub of the community.

Image copyrightNORMAN FOSTER FOUNDATION

That is another of Mr Ledgard’s ideas and the building he has in mind, designed with the help of his friend Lord Norman Foster, would be more than just a place for drones to land and take off.

“It would have a civic presence in the community and space for digital fabrication,” he said.

“It should be possible to have a droneport in every small town in Africa. By 2035 there could be a high density network of drones, making 20 to 50 flights a day,” he said.

And, like others at the LVC, he wants to see drone flights move beyond aid.

Image copyrightSALA LEWIS/WORLD BANK

“There is mass take-up of mobile phones in Africa which opens up e-commerce potential. People who want to buy football boots or sunglasses can get them delivered to a droneport, something like an Argos shop,” he said.

What Mr Ledgard does not want to see is a “Silicon Valley model where you see marginal use of drones for mining or healthy deliveries” replicated across Africa.

He says this despite the fact that it was him who introduced Zipline to the Rwandan government.

It has become the poster boy for drone deliveries and since October 2016, has flown thousands of kilometres in Rwanda, delivering lifesaving units of blood.

However, Zipline is not without its critics. Those in the African drone community bemoan the fact that it is not sharing either its technology or its route with others, and others question how it got its exclusive deal with the Rwandan government and why it does not divulge its delivery charges.

Image copyrightZIPLINE

Mr Mbuya described the firm as being “outside the rest of the African drone community”.

“At LVC all the firms are using the same open hardware and everyone feeds back on that, so that it can be improved,” he said.

Defending his company, Zipline’s global operation manager, Dan Czerwonka, told the BBC: “We do have a proprietary system, but that was born out of necessity.

“We needed something we could scale up for thousands of flights and there was no existing system that we felt was reliable or safe enough. So yes it is proprietary, but then so is Apple.”

Image copyrightSALA LEWIS/WORLD BANK

As to accusations that Zipline is using Africa as a test bed with its real ambitions to launch a service in the US, he is ambivalent.

“I don’t really think there is a desire for thousands of drones whizzing over people’s heads every day, but in rural America there is poor access to health and we want to change that.”

The firm is currently in talks with 14 countries around the world to offer new drone services, and move beyond blood delivery.

This includes talks with the Ghanaian government to offer surveillance drones for illegal mining in the country.

Zipline was also due to launch an on demand drone delivery of blood transfusion supplies, emergency vaccines, HIV medications, anti-malarials and other critical medical supplies in Tanzania, with distribution centres due to open this year in four sites around the country.

But so far nothing has happened, despite the CAA granting it licences. Zipline said simply that the “terms aren’t yet right”, suggesting that the stumbling block could be a financial one.

Leapfrogging roads?

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Africa has done an incredible job in introducing new technologies, with mobile phone penetration in sub-Saharan Africa reaching 44% in 2017, with more than 400 million subscribers.

Mobile has effectively leapfrogged fixed-line telecoms infrastructure, leading some to ask whether the same could become true of drones.

Ken Banks has worked on mobile platforms for Africa for the past two decades and he is not convinced.

“I am not sure drones will revolutionise things in the same way as the mobile did, partly because it is harder to move physical things.

“It is not the panacea some people think it will be. Some things need roads. It is easy to get carried away with new technology at the expense of other things. But if a person is ill you can’t use a drone to get them from one place to another – you need a road.”

After the recent successful launch and “Over-the-Air” trial of e2Eaccess UAS-I with ARPAS-UK member Callen-Lenz, e2E are readying themselves to roll-out large scale Beyond Visual Line-ofSight(BVLOS) trials in 2019.

e2E held their inaugural BVLOS Workshop focused on the integration of SatCom within current and future sUAS to an invite-only group of stakeholders, including British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Inmarsat and several UAS manufacturers and operators.

The Workshop, hosted by the Sales Team at the e2E Headquarters in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, and introduced by Justin Pringle, Innovation and Development Lead for UAS Solutions has raised significant interest.

One of the attendees, David Guerin from the Lake Victoria Challenge was at hand to offer his educated insight into his concerns regarding safe flight management for BVLOS missions in areas with limited terrestrial communications. As an advocate for safe drone use David added: “I found the Workshop particularly worthwhile from the perspective of a practitioner attempting to solve challenges”.

The BVLOS Workshop was created to bring together representatives of the UAS industry; manufacturers, regulators and end-users. This was the first of its kind where attendees shared their unique perspective and took part in opendiscussion about the future, concerns, and needs of a safer UAS industry.

The next BVLOS Workshop will be hosted by Inmarsat, the global satcom service operator, the key technology partner, on Wednesday 27th February 2019 at their HQ in London. If you would like to attend the workshop, please contact bvlos@e2egroup.co.uk

Sky-Futures, the world-leading provider of drone-based inspection services, has released a case study detailing their world-first FPSO* cargo tank inspection by drone.

*Floating Production Storage and Offloading Vessel

Recruited by maritime energy giant BW Offshore to conduct General Visual Inspection (GVI) and Close Visual Inspection (CVI) of 20 tanks (18 Crude Oil Tanks and 2 Slop tanks), Sky-Futures used the collision-tolerant Elios drone to perform a safer, faster inspection method than traditional man-powered methods allow.

Over just 9 days of inspection, they were able to gather a greater quantity and quality of image data than ever before whilst diminishing human risk factors previously posed to personnel conducting physical FSO tank inspections. At 25 metres above ground and in pitch-black conditions, those inspections traditionally require personnel to enter the confined space of tanks with the aid of scaffolding, rope access or filling the tank with water and floating a dingy – a risky and costly method that typically takes up to 3 days per tank.

If you’ve already done the math, then you’ll know that the traditional inspection method of 20 tanks would take up to 60 days in total, meaning the implementation of drone technology saved BW Offshore 51 days of high-risk manpower during this project.

So, how did they achieve this?

Firstly, a small team was assembled – one inspector and one remote pilot – to conduct the inspections using a collision-tolerant drone equipped with a powerful LED light source. Then as the case study explains, “Between five and ten flights were necessary to complete the inspection of a single tank, with each flight taking about ten minutes. The entire inspection scope was performed without the need for any human entry to the tanks.

“The drone was able to fly down into the FSO tank unaided and, by using Sky-Futures proprietary inspection technique, accurately navigate the internal space, conducting both General Visual Inspections (GVI) and Close Visual Inspections (CVI) of the space.”

The result?

Significant time and efficiency savings, minimised risks to personnel and a safer, more economical solution for detailed structural inspections.

Read the full report here

A University of Missouri researcher is teaming up with scholars in Kansas and Georgia to develop drone technology to monitor and potentially predict the spread of wildfires.

Read more…

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