Prince of Songkla University’s (PSU) Faculty of Engineering will officially open the South’s first-ever drone research and training centre next month.
Chukree Daesa, an engineering lecturer at PSU and director of the Faculty of Engineering’s engineering centre for unmanned aerial vehicles, or PSU-UAV, said the centre aims to provide academic services, including training courses on the control of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones.
It is also aimed at promoting the use of UAVs in agriculture, medicine, public health, meteorology and infrastructural development, in addition to testing, maintaining, developing and conducting research on UAVs, said Mr Chukree.
He said PSU-UAV is in partnership with external bodies, including PSU Science Park, which will provide the centre with locations for carrying out test flights; Pulse Science Co Ltd, a supplier of drone equipment; and Aero Technology Industry Co Ltd, a company with expertise in providing training for drone users, which will send its drone experts to provide training at PSU-UAV.
The centre is likely to sign memorandums of understanding (MoU) with these partners and open in the middle of next month, said Mr Chukree. Its first mission will be to provide courses to drone pilots looking to obtain a certificate.
The PSU-UAV will target those who possess a UAV weighing 2kg or more as they need a certificate to fly their drones. PSU-UAV will be the southern region’s first training centre for UAV and the country’s second after the Defence Technology Institute’s (DTI) Unmanned Aircraft Systems Training Centre, or DTI-UTC.