DIPLOMA IN AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS (S90, DASE)

Drone projects in the frontline of innovation at Singapore’s first ‘live’ 5G facility at Singapore Polytechnic

Through their Final Year Projects, Year 3 Diploma in Aerospace Electronic (DASE) students have developed a network of all-terrain drones that are able to track intruders autonomously — outdoors, indoors and even underwater.

The students envision that security personnel will be able to monitor and react to a real-time stream of such intruders with an ultra-fast 5G cellular network.

This 5G network will now be made available to them as they continue to develop the drones at Singapore’s first “live” 5G facility, which was opened by the polytechnic, telecommunications company Singtel and telecom equipment maker Ericsson on Thursday (Jan 17).

The facility, located at Ayer Rajah and named 5G Garage, is connected to Singtel’s latest pilot 5G network, which runs on a trial spectrum granted by the Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA).

The facility will serve as a training centre, test bed and ideation lab to develop and foster adoption of 5G by enterprises in Singapore.

With the ultra-fast speeds and low latency rates, innovations such as the network of drones stand to benefit. Their working prototypes now rely on a 300g on-board chip and have a flight time of up to 25 minutes.

With the incorporation of 5G technology, more of the processing needed can be done in the cloud. This will reduce the weight of the chip by 65 per cent and extend flight time by 35 per cent.

Ultimately, EEE drone team aims to develop a system where the drones will autonomously track a trespassing intruder once he or she sets off the intruder alarm, and equip security personnel with a visual edge.

You can view the highlight of their projects through the Youtube video below: