Nigeria can derive economic benefits from use of drones — Expert

The Rasheed Mosuro, Team Leader, Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) for Nigeria, says the country can derive huge economic benefits from the use of RPAS, otherwise known as unmanned aircraft or drone.

Mosuro, who is also the Quality and Safety Auditor (Engineering) at a private company, disclosed this while speaking with newsmen in Abuja on Friday.

He said that unmanned aircraft could be used in all sectors of the life of the country.

“The Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) have several uses; they have several economic benefits and they cut across all kinds of sectors because they are useful in so many ways.

“One of the things that we do in Nigeria and we are proud of is agriculture and these devices are especially useful for precision agriculture.

“If you want to find out where exactly to find fertilizer, you want to find out where they plant and are getting it right, you want to know where the harvest are ripe with precision, drones can do that.

“One of the biggest industries in Nigeria today is Nollywood and for you to have fantastic views of those videos, you need drones.

“What about the oil and gas? They have all kinds of facilities – big tanks and all kinds of installations – that they need to inspect regularly.

“We have pipelines that run all the way from the Port Harcourt creeks to Kaduna; you cannot have human beings going all those distances to inspect them.

“You need machines that fly fast and are efficient and have very good cameras to do their jobs with accuracy.

“There are thermal cameras that can be used for night viewing or for detection of cracks.’’

According to him, drones experts have described the device as a 3D machine, an ellipsis for Dull, Dirty and Dangerous engineering.

He explained that drones could be used to view things that are dull, dirty and dangerous.

“One good thing about drones is that they have thermal cameras that can detect cracks that ordinary eyes cannot see. They can retain data and they have data accuracy.

“One of the best ways to describe a drone is that it is destructive technology.

“What do I mean by that? When you have destructive technology, it changes everything just like the internet changed everything.

“The advent of the mobile phone and invention of the wheel changed everything about transportation.

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“So, drones are going to change the future horizon of everything because of their multiple uses.

“There are different kinds of drones with different ranges; some last for 15 or 20 minutes, some can fly for five days while some can fly for five years.

“There are some internet companies in the world that we know that want to provide the next phase of internet called the 5G; but today we have 4G and 3G, yet they want to provide 5G for remote areas and they want to use drones to do that.

“Drones are going to be flying at 60,000 feet powered by the sun and they are going to be there for three to five years providing that.

“So the opportunities are tremendous and mind-blowing.’’