Directions, challenges and prospects for the use of drones were discussed by leading industry experts at a round table at Tomsk Polytechnic University.
It should be noted that the discussion was held as part of the two-day conference “Unmanned Industry – 2023”, organized by Geoscan and TPU with the support of the Aeronext Association. Its participants were representatives of partner companies of the event and Tomsk Polytechnic University, as well as students of specialized areas and schoolchildren who could ask questions to experts.
The discussion touched upon a number of issues relevant to the unmanned industry in Russia. Among the key trends noted by experts: the growth of state support for the development of the industry and the growing public interest in drones, which makes it possible to overcome the barriers facing it. The participants of the discussion named technological limitations, lack of personnel, insufficient understanding of the prospects of the industry on the part of customers and a weak degree of participation of business in the system of making managerial decisions at the state level as the main obstacles to date.
The first topic discussed by the experts was import substitution and the achievement of independence in the production of UAVs and components. Alexey Yuretsky, General Director of the Geoscan Group of Companies, pointed out that for this it is necessary to develop the domestic market and demand at the state level.
“The best incentive for import substitution is the development of our own demand. If we form it, manufacturers will be motivated to work for the market. For our part, as a manufacturing company, we monitor the situation and, if we see an opportunity to try domestic solutions, we always try to do it. But there is a whole layer of problems that can be overcome only by long-term efforts at the state level.”
Alexey Yuretsky – General Director of the Geoscan Group of Companies
During the discussion, the experts touched upon the issue of ways to stimulate demand for UAVs in the regions. Pavel Stepanov, Deputy General Director of the Geoscan Group of Companies, noted that such demand is formed at several levels.
“Firstly, this is a state order for services in the field of the use of drones in agriculture, the digitization of cities, and logistics. Secondly, interest from industrial enterprises, businesses that want to receive a product taking into account the specifics of their activities and needs. The third level is personnel, specialists who form ideas and projects that turn into business solutions.”
Pavel Stepanov – Deputy General Director of the Geoscan Group of Companies
Today, Tomsk Polytechnic University is successfully training personnel for the industry, including responding to requests from industrial partners.
“Tomsk Polytechnic University has a number of educational programs where unmanned aerial vehicles are involved in one way or another. Specialists of our engineering schools are developing an optimization approach to the design of drones, conducting scientific research related to composite materials, digital models, flight controllers, swarm control systems and other important components. Our students come up with and implement projects related to this topic. There are examples of successful startups that have received support from the Innovation Promotion Fund.”
Alexander Fadeev – Vice-Rector for Digitalization, Acting Director of the School of Engineering for Information Technology and Robotics
Speaking about the limits of the use of drones, the experts emphasized the active development of their capabilities. For example, unmanned aerial vehicles can already partially replace satellites, be used as repeaters for providing cellular communications, for extinguishing fires in high-rise buildings and for multispectral imaging. Technologies reach the point that today, in a number of cases, information is recognized not on the ground with the help of supercomputers, but directly on board the device using a trained neural network.
In a conversation about the prospects for the use of drones in the country in the coming years, several areas were highlighted.
“Remote zoning of land, digitization of facilities, territories and industrial sites is what is being implemented now and will continue to be scaled up many times due to demand growth. There is also a huge need for drones in agriculture when processing fields with chemicals – today in Russia there are still few such technological solutions. Another promising industry is logistics and cargo delivery using drones.”
Pavel Stepanov – Deputy General Director of the Geoscan Group of Companies
The participants of the discussion also discussed the problems of legal regulation of the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles, the prospects for model aircraft movement in the country, the possibility of import substitution in the production of unmanned aerial vehicles, and others.
