Morocco makes progress in the drone sector
Morocco is committed to sectors of the future that raise the country's industrial and technological capacity.
One of these sectors is drones, and Morocco has companies that promote this industry, such as AeroDrive Engineering Service, a Moroccan company based in Marrakech that offers data collection and evaluation services using drones for the benefit of manufacturers in four sectors: mines and quarries, industrial inspection, building and public works, and precision agriculture.
AeroDrive has been supporting its customers since 2014 through decision-making tools based on data collected accurately, in record time and at competitive costs, and offers a full range of data collection and valorisation solutions for manufacturers, thus meeting a wide range of specific needs.
The company also touches the defence field through collaboration with centres in the US and France through the Airbot divisions, and is present in other projects in Spain and Senegal through Dinámica DAS and Airvolt, respectively.
The drone sector is of great relevance for a wide range of tasks, such as those linked to military and defence uses, transport of goods, mapping, information gathering or surveillance and terrain reconnaissance, for example.
In this case, the work of AeroDrive and that of other companies is very diverse and favours the Moroccan business fabric.
In its case, the company AeroDrive announced significant progress on the Atlas drone with a successful test after all the tests carried out as part of this drone development programme. The Atlas drone is linked to military uses and could be of great importance for the North African country.
The company itself reported on the technical characteristics of this drone, which has the capacity to remain in the air for six hours and has an important competitive advantage, which is its low cost: around 2,000 dollars.
Among the most outstanding features of the Atlas drone is also the implementation of artificial intelligence in the tasks of terrain reconnaissance and surface image collection.
Mohammed Issam Laroussi, an expert in military and strategic affairs, told the Turkish news agency Anadolu that Morocco wants to be a power in drone manufacturing, after it produced the first unit ten years ago. Morocco's military industry has developed a great deal in recent years, and the drone sector has not escaped this dynamic.
Morocco works very closely militarily with other international powers, such as the United States, France and Israel. These are countries with great technological advances in armaments and military vehicles. In the case of Israel, since the signing of the Abraham Accords, by which several Arab countries established diplomatic ties with the Israeli state, under the auspices of the United States, to pacify the Middle East region and confront common enemies, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, collaboration with the Moroccan kingdom has become much closer, as it entered into the dynamics of the Abraham Accords by establishing deep ties with the Hebrew nation in exchange for the United States recognising the Moroccan status of Western Sahara.
Thus, the Israeli company BlueBird Aero Systems, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries, facilitated the Moroccan kingdom's entry into the exclusive club of drone-producing countries.
As several experts have pointed out, Morocco yearns for the establishment of a solid drone manufacturing industry, although it has yet to become self-sufficient in the production of all the components of a drone. However, it is on the way to achieving this goal thanks to the efforts made by the Moroccan state.
In any case, progress is clear since the first drone was manufactured in Morocco in 2014 thanks to the work carried out by companies such as AeroDrive Engineering Service, a company with a portfolio of more than 150 clients that has already completed 8,200 flight hours with its developed devices and has already received six awards for innovation.
