09 February 2018
PwC to help UK firms take-off with drone data
The emerging global market for business services using drones is forecasted to be valued at more than $127bn.
PwC has established a team of specialists in the UK to help clients take advantage of emerging drone technology and extract value from the data it can provide.
In its Clarity from Above report, the consultancy firm says drones have the potential to disrupt a variety of industries, estimating the market for current business services and labour that could be done by drones at more than $127bn globally.
According to the firm, drones can help capture information from a new angle, gathering data quickly from hard to reach places with accuracy down to a few centimetres. It also reckons that they can make a “crucial” difference to clients in managing costs, controlling risks and improving safety.
PwC says its new team will focus on industries with the best prospects for drone applications, such as infrastructure, agriculture and transport. It will primarily assist clients with three areas: asset maintenance and monitoring; capital projects and construction monitoring; and strategic planning for deploying drone solutions across an organisation.
The team will combine expertise in cyber security and analytics with machine learning techniques to help businesses unlock the raw data collected by drones. These will then be integrated with existing management information systems to provide comprehensive insights.
“The majority of organisations are still using drone data at project stage, rather than embedding the technology into their strategy,” says Elaine Whyte, PwC’s UK drones leader. “We’re already seeing early adopters in large-scale capital projects using drone data to enhance insight into their investments, allowing for better control of building sites and creating that definitive golden record of information.”
The company adds that it is already undertaking client work with drones, largely led out of a Centre of Excellence team in Poland. There, PwC’s Drone Powered Solutions team was formed more than four years ago to take advantage of the country’s more expansive drone regulation.
R&S claims first with independently certified eCall test solution
Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) has announced that its eCall wireless communications test platform is the first to be certified by an independent test body.
From 1 April onward, car makers are required to equip new vehicles for sale in the EU with an eCall module. In the event of a serious accident, this automatically sends data to the universal European emergency phone number, 112, to facilitate faster response from medical, police and fire crews.
CETECOM has been officially designated as a technical service for eCall by the German Federal Motor Transport Authority. The independent consulting and testing firm has examined the implementation of the eCall test public safety answering point (PSAP) in R&S’ CMW-KA094 solution and certified it as compliant with the CEN EN 16454:2015 standard.
R&S says its compact system can be used for reproducible end-to-end functional tests and standard-compliant conformance tests of eCall and ERA-Glonass modules (the latter describes the accident emergency response system that uses Russia’s version of GPS, the Global Navigation Satellite System) Car makers and suppliers use these tests to check whether the installed modem properly initiates an emergency call in the event of a motor vehicle accident, correctly acquires the relevant data and sends it via the mobile network, and is able to establish a voice connection to the PSAP.
R&S adds that it is also developing test features for eCall over LTE, and making the corresponding solution fit for testing new vehicle telematics units.
