- You can imagine in the future,
what drones could do for us.
- Sort of "Jetsons"-like universe
where everything is flying in all different spaces.
- This was a desert when we came.
- We will be seeing drones.
- 100 drones,
500 drones,
1,000 drones.
- Utilizing our airspace even more.
- The airspace is a critical component
for this sector to take off.
No pun intended.
- We've always imagined that the mode of transport
that we will use is ultimately gonna be up in the sky.
- This is what Dubai looks like today.
This is what Dubai wants it to look like in 50 years.
So how do they get there?
Flying vehicles like drones
are starting to roll out around the world,
but most only fly in rural areas.
How do we translate that to a city with tall buildings,
ongoing construction, and heavy air traffic.
That's where Dubai is leading the way.
- Once we start flying in Dubai,
it will be the most congested airspace
we have operated drone deliveries in.
- It is roads, sky roads.
If you have a virtual city, you will save millions.
- It's like, you know, you're building
the infrastructure of an entirely new city
to include the skies.
- Drones are faster, more efficient, and greener.
We like to say that every drone flight
takes a polluting van off the road.
- At a time where it is critical
to reduce our reliance
on polluting forms of transportation—
speed up our ability to get from A to B faster-
- This is the benefit of airspace.
No restrictions, no congestions, no traffic lights.
- and deliver essential items
to people and businesses that need it-
- Pharmaceutical companies,
hospital groups,
e-commerce and grocery groups.
- drones might just be the answer.
- I'm Daniel Hochar.
I'm the strategy and operations manager
at Skyports.
- Skyports is a leading drone company
operating drone deliveries in countries across the world.
- We think Dubai is ripe for innovation
with drone deliveries.
It's an emirate that is known
for pushing boundaries forward.
- A critical piece of the puzzle
to ensuring drones fly across congested cities like Dubai
is regulation.
- You need to have regulatory frameworks
and safety procedures
that allow drones to share the skies
with other aviation users.
- Dubai brought private sector
and government together
to create a super-clear framework
for testing and approving drone deliveries.
That all starts here at Dubai Future Labs.
- My name is Khalifa Al Qama,
and I am part of the Dubai Future Foundation
leading the robotics and automation laboratory.
- Dubai Future Foundation is a government entity
commissioned with the sole purpose to make Dubai
a leading city of the future.
Khalifa is the head of Dubai Future Labs,
a space created to test out cutting-edge technologies
that improve our lives.
Khalifa is a big believer in building and doing things,
not just talking about them.
- There we go.
We should build you something to support that.
- For this project,
the lab brings everyone together.
Drone companies, software developers,
and the government agencies
that will help facilitate the effort.
- When you talk about drones and wanting them to happen,
it's not only that
the technology needs to be tested,
but it's the regulation that needs to be tested,
and the built environment,
the urban fabric needs to be tested.
- So, to test out drones and other technologies
they built a city.
- It is a real-life scenario of what will be done at scale,
as opposed to flying over just empty desert.
- The plot of land I'm standing on right now
is part of a huge development called 'Dubai Silicon Oasis.'
It's a city like anywhere else
where people live, work and play—
but what's unique about this city
is that they built it to test out new technologies.
This specific spot is where they test out
unmanned aerial vehicles: drones, flying taxis,
basically anything that flies in the sky
without a human behind the wheel.
- It's good to meet you.
- Welcome to our facility.
- Thank you so much, it's a-
- Dubai Silicon Oasis is a integrated community.
We have more than 90,000 people living in DSO.
- So here exactly, where are the drones
that are not yet certified, will be tested here.
- So how long have you been working
in Dubai Silicon Oasis?
- I've been working here for 16 years.
I remember the first day we came.
We did not have even restaurants around here,
but now we have a mall,
a hospital, schools, universities.
So we have it all.
You can work here, live here, stay here.
- This is one of the helipads.
As you can see, the experimental zone—
it's stretched down the line there.
- Saeed works for the
Dubai Civil Aviation Authority,
and is in charge of helping to regulate the airspace.
We spoke to him on the helipad at
Fakeeh University Hospital.
The hospital will send critical medical supplies
via drone from this very spot.
The challenge is buildings are going up all around the city.
To solve this, Saeed combined forces
with the Dubai Municipal Authority
to create a digital map of the city
that changes as it grows.
He's working with Astra,
a private, unmanned traffic management system, or UTM,
to create a system for directing
drones through the sky.
- The purpose of the UTM:
it guides the drones, where to go, how to land,
if there's any conflict with other drone
it will manage who will go up
to avoid any collision in the space.
- Not only is Dubai regulating
for vehicles to fly across the skies,
it's also building the infrastructure
that will support the transportation methods
of the future.
- Buildings should have a different way of being built,
you need to maybe have pockets for those drones.
They should actually do the mapping for the drone
to avoid areas such as hospital helipads;
so we're working on that.
- Dubai's drone program could act as a blueprint
for other cities to begin opening up
their skies to electric aircraft.
- If we manage to demonstrate that
what we want to accomplish can
be done safely, and at scale,
I think, really, the sky is the limit.
- And transporting food, goods, and people
by electric vehicles flying across the sky
could be a game-changer for our world.
- It was a dream, especially when you look at your project,
which you've been working on it for a long time,
you could see the dream coming true.
Dubai is the city of future.
So this is a starting point
to enable the future to come today.
- The most fascinating part of this project
is the pace of progress.
The next 5 and 10 years always surprise us
at where it could go,
let alone 30 or 40 years down the line.
To be able to actually change how societies work,
implement technologies that could be meaningful
to our futures.