Drone Operations Center temporarily closed
Our Singapore Drone Operations Center (DOC) will be closed from 5 April to 4 May 2020. All DOC rentals, demonstrations, system testing and integration work will be postponed to a later date.
SaaS and GIS Services available
All online services including Garuda Plex, Plex Pilot, Plex Horizon, and Plantation 4.0 will continue to be available. All Geospatial Analytics services will continue while the team works from home. Our partner drone insurance product CoverFlight will continue to be available.
Flight Operations and Engineering Services available if legal
Flight operations and training services that are deemed legal for select customers in their respective countries will continue (for example, if the customer provides an Essential Service as defined by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore).
Software Engineering Services will continue to be available. Hardware Engineering Services will be continue to be available, but with delays.
All other services will be suspended. Please get in touch with us if you have concerns on this front.
Our doors remain wide open – contact us online
Garuda Robotics has instituted full Work For Home (WFH) measures. You can reach us on email and other digital channels.
We’d still love to meet you over a video conferencing call!
Virtual DOC
We have begun to virtualise our DOC and will be announcing these online services soon. Unlike typical off-the-shelf services like video conferencing, some of the features will not be available in the virtualised version. We will be sharing more details on this once we’re ready.
Affected services by Industries
1. Plantation Customers
Malaysia’s Movement Control Order (MCO) does not permit drone mapping activities for collecting fresh data. Companies may use this time to upload their previously generated maps to Plantation 4.0 for analysis instead of collecting fresh data.
Reference: Limited oil palm, rubber, logging activities to continue during MCO (The EDGE Markets)
2. Facilities Management Customers
FM work that is deemed an essential service will continue. FM work that requires access to hard-to-reach areas or bring us in contact with many people should be postponed until the Circuit Breaker / MCO measures have been lifted.
3. Security Customers
All drone surveillance and incident response systems, especially those that are or will be flying BVLOS, will continue to be implemented from home.
All Singapore deployments in the pipeline for deployment will be suspended until May. All other system deployments will be on hold until travel restrictions have been lifted.
4. Drone Delivery Customers
All drone delivery services are suspended, as we are limiting Operations Team deployments for health and safety reasons. We will not be able to support any new, near-term requirements for drone deliveries.
However, if you have drone delivery requirements in the medium term (starting 2-3 months from now), please get in touch with us to discuss.
F.A.Q.
Q: Are drone sprayers around the city an effective way to curb COVID-19?
A: There is a rush by governments such as China, Spain, and South Korea, to attempt a variety of methods to prevent the SARS-COV-2 virus from spreading further. This includes loading sprayers with disinfecting chemical to any suspected contaminated surface.
At this moment we have insufficient data to know if it’s effective. If you have such a request, please contact us to discuss.
Reference: 3 ways China is using drones to fight coronavirus (World Economic Forum)
Q: How likely is it for drones to deliver necessities during a lockdown?
Robots such as drones (UAVs) that can be safely operated from an isolated command centre, can be very useful for transportation and logistics during a lockdown.
Drone delivery, especially in urban areas, is still in its infancy. Garuda Robotics has been leading the charge to solve this together with forward looking companies in the FutureFlight Consortium. One such service we have built is an AED Delivery Drone that can fly an AED to a medical volunteer helping to revive a cardiac arrest patient.
The hardest part of the puzzle is to safely integrate these flying robots into the national airspace control system of every city and country where the service operates. Regulators around the world are still racing to put together a coherent framework to enable such services to be available.
May the 4th, be with you
We look forward to your continued support.
Stay healthy and safe as we navigate ourselves out of this crisis.
From all of us at Garuda Robotics