The hard climb of innovation

For the last couple of months, our design team has been hard at work at detail development of our drone concept which we hope to make public early 2021. These have been unprecedented times with so many changes within our company: people moving countries, stuck at airports, universities closing and transitioning to online classes and exams; all in the space of one year!

Nevertheless, one of the fundamental challenges facing the drone industry in developing countries next year, is how to operate within an environment where shipping of critical parts (amongst other things) has been disrupted due to the covid-19 pandemic. If the most critical items (propellers, batteries, sensors, etc. ) of the system are also associated with the longest lead time, this has a significant impact on the operating cost and service coverage that can be achieved.

Unfortunately, there's no easy way of solving this issue except if it was envisioned as part of the development process. But this is seldom the case as most drone systems are designed with the assumption that its parts can be sourced on online marketplaces . This assumption might be correct in developed and developing countries, that simply not the reality in Africa (especially outside the capital cities) and the drones that will be operating within it.

Uav4africa development plan has adopted a vertical integration development philosophy that ensures that the development, operation and servicing of all its systems are largely independent of external suppliers and contractors. Just like the picture above, in order to achieve that, we need to be able to control/manage (through acquisition or development) critical parts of the supply chain.

This has been our journey for the past 3 years driven by a simple motto: made by Africans for Africans. We made the decision to design and manufacture our drones from easily available materials and manufacturing methods for scalability and ease of operation while complying with professional standards for aerospace design and manufacturing.

Carry on following our journey of hope through the use of aerospace science as we strive to make an impact in our beautiful continent we call home.

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