Keeping a Check on Safety in the Skies - Teppei Seki, Director of Aramco-Backed Terra Drone

Terra Drone's drone-based surveying and inspection solutions are helping companies across industries like oil and gas, chemical, and construction. The Japanese company's unmanned traffic management (UTM) is also successfully running in eight countries.

Surprisingly, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) space wasn’t Terra Drone founders’ initial area of focus. In fact, they first started Terra Motors, an electronic vehicle (EV) manufacturing business, way back in 2010.

Speaking to Auto Futures, Terra Drone's Director of the Board, Teppei Seki, explains that, while the company’s e-rickshaw business was spread across Southeast Asia and India, it did not have the first mover advantage that it was seeking. The company began exploring areas like IoT and digital transformations. It was only then that it began to see how big the UAV business was becoming.

The team founded Terra Drone in 2016 with the intent of pursuing the UAV business, but from the enterprise or industrial usage lens.

“One of our strengths is that we’re a one-stop drone solutions company. For starters, we provide hardware and software services for the purpose of survey and inspection to industries like infrastructure, oil and gas and construction. That aside, our unmanned traffic management (UTM) gives us a unique competitive edge over other players in the space,” says Seki.

Elaborating on its UTM system, he adds: “Aircrafts at a low altitude need to have a certain system to control them, especially for safety and privacy reasons. This is exactly what Terra Drone is trying to solve. Number of drones is on a steady rise, and they seem to be creating problems in the areas that see the increase in numbers."

"Let’s take the example of the incident that happened at the UK's Gatwick airport close to Christmas back in 2018. Drones went up in the airspace, flying very close to an aircraft. It was incredibly dangerous to have an unmanned drone fly so close to a manned aircraft. They had to shut down the entire operations for a while. We believe that just like manned aircraft and aviation, in general, is controlled by the relevant authorities, there needs to be a certain system to control UAVs as well. This is where UTM comes in,” he says.

Countries around the world follow either the American or the European standard regulatory framework, or some local adaptation of it. This is why several pioneer e-VTOL companies like Joby Aviation, Volocopter and EHang are gaining approved on these standards. While there are many UAV companies out there, there are barely any UTM solutions out there that can keep a check on safety.

Moreover, with somewhat standard regulations around the world, having one universal solution starts to become a possibility. And so, when Terra Drone met Unifly in 2016 at a conference in Europe, it decided to make a minor investment in the company despite having just started up itself.

As Unifly expanded its business, Terra Drone continued sending its people to Unifly, before finally acquiring it as a subsidiary company. Terra Drone has sent two of its directors to Unifly’s headquarters at Belgium, where they are focusing on customer integration. 

Opening up More Business Opportunities

Seki strongly believes that the UTM system will become a necessity in the coming century, where it will act like an infrastructure in the sky, much like today’s streets or highways.

One of the biggest proof of concepts (PoCs) that the company has undertaken is for one of the largest international events in Japan. It is set to be a major event, where a number of mobility companies will showcase cutting-edge technology. Terra Drone’s PoC started two years ago, and is currently in the second phase.

Osaka, the city where the event will be hosted, is one of Japan’s largest, and has two major airports. While there are a number of UAVs flying close to the airports, Terra Drone will be deploying its UTM and avoid accidents between manned and unmanned aircrafts, including the drones and UAV. 

While the opportunities are many, Seki notes that a space so unique as this comes with its own set of challenges.

“There are two main challenges - technology and regulation. There has been little technological innovation when it comes to the battery life cycle of drones. Despite all this time, it hasn't changed a lot. It all depends on whether you have a good drone or not, as well as on the battery size. A good-sized battery can fly up to one or two hours, or else it could be as less as 30, 20 or even just 10 minutes."

"The second part to this is regulation, which is actually getting better. Regulation needs to be more detailed for people to start building consumer businesses around them, and for users to be using them for personal usage like using it instead of a selfie stick. But, like I said, the good part is that regulation is steadily easing up, opening up a lot more opportunities,” he adds.

Building an Air-Mobility Native Society

Terra Drone recently bagged USD 14 million in investment from Wa’ed Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Saudi energy giant Aramco.

“The drone space has seen significant growth, which is why Aramco is choosing to focus its attention on it. Saudi Arabia also has a big smart city project called Neom. The idea is to build this city to be a drone and air-mobility native society. That's why they need a technology partner to bring in Saudi Arabia. Through their 'Vision 2030' programme, they started by inviting 50 companies in the global drone sector for this project. In the end, only one company remained - Terra Drone,” explains Seki.

It might be a while before UAM become a mainstream mobility alternative, but, for Seki, things are certainly looking up.

“The period between 2025 and 2027 will prove to be critical for UAM. Since this space will see a lot of activity during this time-frame, we could possibly see the FAA or other regulatory authorities give their approvals this year or the next year, meaning that they could be up and running by 2025-2026. There is also this possibility that real estate companies operate it commercially like ride-hailing service, much like Uber today."

"We’re trying to make sure that when the time comes, we’re ready with our solution to avoid any accidents or untoward incidents,” he concludes.