Many countries and regions have developed policies for the critical strategic development of UASs. Hong Kong, and mainland China, and the rest of the world are undergoing a revolution arising from “Smart City” technologies. Due to the high potential of the UAS in revaluating the industry, several research centres or institutes were built around the world. Lots of the industrialization are produced by the well-known robotics centres located in the UK, U.S, Germany, Singapore, and mainland China, with specialization ranging from field robotics, UAV, artificial intelligence, and human-robot collaborative systems. These investigated autonomous systems are mainly targeted at field applications and indoor applications, such as indoor service robotics.
As pointed out in the Outline of the Chinese 14th Five-Year Plan (中國十四五規劃重點), China will focus on the development of marine, maritime, shipping, and ship-related industries. Benefiting from the rich marine and shipping resources of Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area (GBA), RCUAS will launch the first UUV study within Hong Kong together with UAV and UGV, which is promising to form the land-sea-air integrated autonomous mobile systems.
UAS is one of the most promising innovations, technologies in the industry 4.0 era
It is a global common belief that the development of unmanned system technologies has the potential to significantly improve efficiency and stimulate the economic growth of the world. In other words, UAS can transform the existing industries with new values. Autonomous driving technology and the large-scale operation of logistics and distribution, and the realization of low-cost and high-efficiency logistics and distribution are the inevitable trends of the future development of Hong Kong's logistics.
Hong Kong is strong in innovation, technologies, and start-ups
Fortunately, Hong Kong is the world-level pool that cultivates and attracts talents in innovation, technology, and start-ups. Lots of new ideas and prototypes are developed continuously in Hong Kong. Among those innovations, the UAS is one of the most promising and industry-needed sections. However, Hong Kong lacks space for manufacturing and testing to make all those innovations come true.
GBA is strong in manufacturing, testing and industrialization
In fact, the GBA is famous for manufacturing, testing, and industrialization. The roles and connections between Hong Kong and the GBA are inseparable. Many successful examples in transferring the innovations from Hong Kong to GBA occur, such as the DJI for UAV and GOOGOL Tech for intelligent robots. Moreover, the GBA also provides many testing beds for UAV and UGV systems.
The PolyU RCUAS can lead to continuous impact to both Hong Kong and GBA
From the holistic aspect, Hong Kong possesses a strategic position within the GBA and the GBA is famous in applications ranging from intelligent transportation to intelligent manufacturing which has a strong demand for UAS. In short, the UAS is required both locally by Hong Kong logistic industry and urbanization, and the GBA. The UAS research in Hong Kong can provide continuous talents, innovations, and technologies to GBA where all those technologies will be industrialized and come true.
