Drones steal the show at WDS 2022; and more Middle East AI News
Carrington Malin
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Welcome to Middle East AI News!
Lots of news coming out of the World Defense Show in Riyadh this week, with nearly $8 billion in defence deals?announced during the event. As we might have expected, a lot of the announcements were related to drone technology, including new drones, plans for drone production in Saudi Arabia and new joint venture agreements. Scroll down for a recap of all the UAV-related announcements from the #WDS2022 week.
I've also recapped another developing drone story below: how drones are being used for forestation programmes across the GCC! Environment agencies and other organisations concerned with the region's desert environment have accelerated efforts to increase tree density, by using drone technologies.
Scroll down for these stories and more, including a link to the interview of the week featuring Asim Qureshi, Executive Director of Technology & Engineering Solutions at Saudi UAV company Intra Defence Technologies.
Have a question or want to share your own perspective? Please do leave a comment or send me a message. I'd love to hear from you!
/Carrington
Middle East AI News – 10-Mar-22
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Drones steal the show at WDS 2022
The inaugural World Defense Show took place in #Riyadh , #Saudi Arabia this week, becoming the platform for the announcement of an estimated $7.9 billion of defence deals. The event was also an opportunity for the government to show the progress made in ramping up local research and development, and manufacturing, in an effort to localise more than 50 percent of the Kingdom's defence spending by 2030.
As one could have expected, drones stole the show, with new unmanned system launches, global partnerships and made-in-Saudi UAV prototypes. However, there are many factors at play here that make Saudi Arabia a key focus for the local and global UAS/UAV industry.?
First, there are the ongoing drone attacks against targets all over Saudi Arabia by Houthi rebels in #Yemen , with which the Kingdom shares a 1,300km border. Despite the fact that the Houthi's drones are relatively unsophisticated, they remain difficult and expensive to neutralise. For example, shooting down these 'flying lawnmowers' (as the Houthi drones are sometimes disparagingly called) using Raytheon's Patriot surface-to-air missile system can cost?$1-$3 million per missile. So, there is naturally a keen interest in anti-drone systems.
Secondly, the military leadership in many Middle East countries have identified drones as an opportunity to boost the capabilities and potential of armed service units. Unmanned aircraft, marine drones and autonomous vehicles can add offensive, reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities at a relatively affordable cost. Their remote operation also means that action can be taken without putting human assets in harm's way, such as in operations beyond borders. With $45 billion earmarked for military spending in 2022, Saudi Arabia is arguably the region's largest potential customer for unmanned systems.
Lastly, new UAV technologies are opening up market opportunities for local aviation and defence manufacturers to succeed in competition with the world's top, and long-established, exporters. The entry level - in terms of both costs and knowledge - for designing and manufacturing UAVs, USVs and UVs can be set a little lower, when compared to fighter jets, tanks, warships and other advanced defence systems. From an investor point of view, they can also be faster to develop and bring to market, lowering risk and raising the prospect of faster returns.
The deals and discussions around the World Defense Show clearly mirrored all these factors, with announcements of local UAV production, the availability of cutting edge new UAV products and anti-drone systems.?
Here's a list of some of the top drone stories from the show:
Find out more about the region's UAV market:
Can drones reforest the Gulf region?
#Oman 's Environment Authority (EA) this week announced that it had used drones to sow 250,000 wild tree seeds in Al Sarain Reserve in the wilayat of Amerat, in the Sultanate's capital area. The project is part of the authority's initiative to plant 10 million wild trees by 2030 and drones are playing an increasing role in the effort. In fact, there now seem to be new forestation projects using drone technology all across the #GCC states.
The EA has already used drones to plant different species of tree seeds in ecosystems across the Sultanate of Oman. Last year it used drones to scatter one million mangrove seeds in the wilayat of Mahout on the country's south coast over a four day period.
Meanwhile, at Oman's national pavilion in Expo 2020 Dubai, the 'Sustainability Forest' exhibit showcases the Million Date Palm Plantation Project. The project uses drone technology to pollinate date palm trees across eleven farms scattered across the country, 300 times faster than traditional pollination. The technology project is driven by Omani startup Wakan Tech , with funding from the Oman Technology Fund .
Drones are playing a key role in the forestation of the #UAE too. UAE on-demand petrol delivery startup CAFU developed a drone project to plant tree seeds. With the first pilot project using specially developed drones to plant 4,000 tree seeds in 2019, the startup plans to help plant millions of ghaf trees in the Emirates.?
The drought-tolerant ghaf tree has been identified by environmental organisations as critically important to the region's ecology, representing a key food source and habitat for a wide range of animals and birds. The drones used to disperse the seeds fire a high velocity 'seedball' at the ground, aiming to embed the seeds at least one centimetre under the surface.
In 2020, the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MoCCAE) , in cooperation with the Nikai Group of Companies and Falcon Eye Drones Services (FEDS) , used drones to disperse six million ghaf tree and acacia tree seeds across 25 locations in the northern, eastern, and central regions of the UAE.
In a separate project, FEDS, in partnership with Zayed University and the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture, planted 250,000 Ghaf seeds and 6 million samar tree seeds across a 150 square kilometre area.?
In Abu Dhabi, global utility company Engie has partnered with the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) to use drones to plant thousands of mangrove tree seeds. The Mangrove Rehabilitation Project uses drones to both plant and monitor the growth of the mangrove trees, near the company's Mirfa water and power plant west of Abu Dhabi city. As of January 2022, more than 35,000 mangrove seeds had been planted around Mirfa lagoon.
#Saudi Arabia is also leveraging specialised drones to fast-track forestation. In Hail, in the north of the country, drones are being used to plant 100,000 trees in the Imam Turki bin Abdullah Royal Reserve. At the Royal Reserve of Abdul Aziz in Riyadh drones were used earlier this year to disperse 300,000 sidr tree seeds.
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Drones do seem to be accelerating the effort to plant native desert trees in the Kingdom and throughout the region. The Gulf's most ambitious forestation initiative - as part of the green initiatives launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last year - is Saudi Arabia's plan to plant 10 billion trees.
Find out more about this story:
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Here's some more interesting news from the past week:
AI Diplomacy
Corporate
Defense
Education
Environment
R&D
Startups
World Defense Show
Interview of the week!
Watch: INTRA's Asim Qureshi discuss the company's expansion plans
The Arab News talked to Asim Qureshi , Executive Director of Technology & Engineering Solutions at #Saudi Arabia-based UAV company Intra Defence Technologies , during the World Defence Show this week in #Riyadh . In this video he talks about ramping up UAV manufacturing, the impact on headcount and company strategy.
Watch the video (2 minutes)
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2 年It is heartening to learn that drones are planting tree seeds.?