Fly Drone, a company in Rostec’s portfolio, is implementing a joint project with the government of St. Petersburg to create an urban air mobility pilot zone for testing drones. The infrastructure necessary for drone flights in the airspace of St. Petersburg is planned to be put in place by the summer of 2022.

The work will be carried out in partnership with the Research and Production Corporation Almaz. The corresponding agreement was signed with the Committee for Transport and the Committee for Informatization and Communications of St. Petersburg. According to the document, the parties will develop a special digital platform based on existing city services and a ground-based radar system. This will ensure safe flights of drones within the city and significantly simplify the procedure for their approval. In addition, the project will make it possible to form a database of verified airspace users.

In the future, the new digital platform will enable drone owners to offer themselves as contractors for orders placed in the system. Thus, the platform will create a market for professional drone-based services. In particular, drones can be used for aerial photography, various types of monitoring, urgent delivery of goods, as well as 3D modeling of the terrain and structures.

Fly Drone engineers will develop personalized online services for user registration, flight coordination, and liability insurance. Authorization in the system will be carried out through the Portal of Government Services. A drone owner will be able to file a flight plan application using a simplified interface and automatically receive permission from the transport committee to use the airspace. Application review is expected to take no more than one day. The integration of the developed platform into the system of digital city services of St. Petersburg is scheduled for May 2022.

“Our R&D products and competencies will help create a comfortable, safe, and absolutely legal environment for drone flights in St. Petersburg. The market for drone-based services is now emerging. Any company that manages to demonstrate the safety and availability of its technology will be in demand. We invite potential contractors and customers for such services to test them in the pilot zone. By working on this project, we are creating a highly competitive international product, which in the long run will allow our country to lead the global market,” the founders of Fly Drone say.

PJSC ALMAZ R&P Corp. will provide ground infrastructure, including the central control room of the monitoring system, a multilateration system, and a radar-optical complex for detecting low-observable low-altitude targets.