China to promote drones for marine surveillance

China will promote the use of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to strengthen the nation's marine surveillance, the Chinese State Oceanic Administration (SOA) said. The SOA verified and accepted a pilot program of using drones to undertake remote-sensing marine surveillance in Lianyungang, a costal city in eastern Jiangsu Province, according to China's (Xinhua) News Agency. With the experience learned from the pilot program, the SOA would try to form a managerial system and technical regulations in a bid to set up UAV surveillance and monitoring bases in provinces along China's coastline by 2015, Yu Qingsong, a division chief of the administration said. In addition, the SOA would step up efforts to enhance its surveillance of the islands and islets including the Diaoyu Islands and Huangyan Island. According to the SOA, the use of pilotless aircraft in remote-sensing marine surveillance is relatively flexible, low-cost and efficient, compared with the performance of satellite remote sensing,aerial remote sensing and field monitoring.