The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) has awarded a contract to a consortium led by Thales and including local technology firm Deeeplabs to deliver the city-state’s national Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) platform. The system will provide a single, integrated portal covering registration, flight approval and real-time tracking of every drone flight in Singapore’s airspace.
The platform is based on Thales’s TopSky – AstraUTM solution. CAAS has positioned it as the regulatory and operational backbone for Singapore’s growing drone ecosystem, spanning logistics, infrastructure inspection, maritime operations, emergency response and urban air mobility.
A One-Stop Portal for Drone Operations in a Constrained Airspace
Under the contract, Thales will deploy a digital platform that consolidates what are typically fragmented workflows for drone operators, registering aircraft and pilots, filing and approving flight plans, and monitoring drones in flight, into a single CAAS-administered system. According to the press release issued by Thales, the platform is designed to shorten regulatory approval times and improve situational awareness as drone traffic volumes rise.
Singapore’s airspace is among the world’s most constrained. The island measures roughly 730 square kilometres, hosts Changi Airport (one of Asia’s busiest hubs) and overlaps with sensitive zones such as military training areas, port approaches and dense urban districts. A national UTM system gives the regulator a real-time view of where uncrewed aircraft are operating and provides operators with deterministic approval pathways, both prerequisites for scaling beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations.
TopSky – AstraUTM: A Platform Built Through Acquisition
The TopSky – AstraUTM product is the result of Thales’s 2024 acquisition of AstraUTM, a Dubai-based UTM software specialist with which Thales had previously signed a Memorandum of Understanding in October 2022. The acquisition gave Thales a cloud-native UTM stack that it has since paired with its TopSky air traffic management portfolio used by air navigation service providers globally.
The platform supports operator and drone registration, digital flight planning and authorisation, and real-time monitoring of unmanned flights. It is the same product family that Thales is deploying for Avinor, Norway’s air navigation service provider, under a December 2024 contract for that country’s next-generation nationwide UTM system. Singapore’s deployment extends that footprint into Asia-Pacific.
The Local Partner: Deeeplabs
Deeeplabs is a Singapore-based cloud system integrator founded in 2016 and headquartered at One Raffles Place. The company provides application modernisation, data analytics, cloud integration and software development services to public- and private-sector clients in Southeast Asia. Under the consortium structure, Deeeplabs will support deployment and operational services for the UTM platform, contributing local engineering capacity and integration work alongside Thales’s aviation systems expertise.
The pairing follows a pattern Singapore has used in other digital infrastructure programmes: a global prime contractor with domain depth, partnered with a domestic systems integrator to anchor delivery, support and long-term operations.
Deepening a Long-Running CAAS-Thales Relationship
The award is the latest milestone in a CAAS-Thales partnership that dates back to a 2018 Memorandum of Understanding on next-generation air traffic management. The two organisations established a joint Aviation Innovation Research (AIR) Lab in 2019, valued at S$30 million at launch, to develop an Open ATM System architecture. In May 2025, CAAS and Thales expanded the relationship by setting up an International Avionics Lab in Singapore alongside Changi Airport Group, SATS, Singapore Airlines and the International Centre for Aviation Innovation.
Awarding the UTM contract to Thales aligns the unmanned airspace layer with the same vendor underpinning much of Singapore’s manned ATM infrastructure, simplifying future ATM/UTM integration as drone operations move into controlled airspace.
Thales has been present in Singapore since 1973 and employs more than 2,000 people locally across avionics, defence, public security and digital identity, with operations supporting both Singapore-specific programmes and global production for the group.
