AN IRISH COMPANY specialising in high-tech drones including specialist drug interdiction military equipment has been granted special permission to use airspace off the Clare coast. 

A-techsyn is a firm that manufactures the unmanned aircraft at their factory in Shannon Co Clare. 

It has begun testing drones near Doonbeg but now have been granted by the Irish Aviation Authority a large swath of airspace up to 2,500 feet as they perfect the Irish tech.

The company is well known in the Irish defence community and has exhibited at an event in October 2022 in which Irish manufacturers of military grade equipment showed their products. 

They have three major projects. There is the DTIF-Guard initiative with the Naval Service which is designed to help the Irish Navy have a surveillance capability to monitor drug traffickers. This is in partnership with a number of Irish universities. 

Ultimately it is a high-tech solution so that the Naval Service will not need a ship to be in the area to surveil a location. The vehicle could also be used in a way that would mean an Irish Naval vessel could stay at an undetected distance and could launch it to watch the suspect vessel. 

There is also the Mistral project with the Tyndall Institute in Cork and the Irish Defence Forces. The vehicle is a smaller drone which can be used to surveil disaster sites and be deployed with military personnel and aid agencies. 

There is also a project, the U-AVES system, which will be used for ecological studies ahead of the construction of massive off-shore wind farms. It involves industry and academia that the company hopes to “revolutionise ecological surveys”.

In an entry on its website A-techsyn said that it has the potential to reduce the number of site-based personnel, logistics, materials, CO2 emissions, weather downtime, costs and risk of accidents and could reach areas inaccessible by traditional methods.

Aispace

The Irish Aviation Authority warning about the airspace closure states that a temporary restricted area blocks flights in the area except for emergency services on “operational missions” from 8 July to 4 October next. 

The notice also states that A-Techsyn Ltd is in control of the airspace.

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Denis Collins of A-Techsyn said that the drones have a 4.5 metre wing span and three metres long and can vertically take off and land. 

Collins also explained that the testing area is adjacent to the Trump International golf resort in Doonbeg. As there are a number of helicopter flights in and out of the hotel A-Techsyn has liaised with the business to ensure safety is maintained. 

“We are actually in control of the airspace there now, like any helicopters coming in while we are actively working there, they have to ask us permission to come in.

“There’s no issue there whatsoever as we can suspend our flights and they can come in.

“It is an ideal site because we can take off and we’re straight out over the water in thirty seconds so there is a lot of safety and risk mitigation,” he said. 

Collins said the drones can fly for seven hours on just seven litres of fuel and can reach altitudes of 18,000 feet. 

The private and State partnership is not unique – The Journal has previously reported from a major NATO drone event in Portugal. 

The Irish Naval Service was at that event at a dedicated drone base in Troia, and off the coast of the seaside resort town of Sesimbra, testing subsurface drones but there was a great deal of work being done also on flying drones used for military monitoring and surveillance.