Drones

ANRA drone supply Swiggy BVLOS flight in India

ANRA Technologies Private Limited, a leader in integrated airspace management, and Swiggy, India’s leading on-demand delivery platform, announced today that stakeholders from the Indian Ministry of Defense (MoD), the Directorate-General of Aviation (DGCA) and the Department of Civil Aviation ( MOCA), has given the ANRA Technologies-led consortia final permits to begin trials for the operation of Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) in India. The ANRA drone delivery app will power Uber Eats of India deliveries in an unprecedented series of BVLOS drone delivery flights in India.

The project took months of planning, but the 100 hours of planned BVLOS flights will be instrumental in moving India’s drone industry forward. “The aim is to collect data and make it scalable across India,” explains Amit Ganjoo, founder and CEO of ANRA, in an interview. “It took almost two years to carry out these BVLOS operations – but the regulators are really jumping through the hoops to make this a reality.”

The ANRA flight team started its first mission on June 16, 2021. Over the next few weeks, the flight team will be using ANRA SmartSkies technology and SmartSkies DELIVERY, ANRA’s software solution that connects customers, BVLOS deliveries of food and medical packages in the Etah and Rupnagar districts conduct delivery services and other stakeholders.

The first shipment was a box of chocolates, says Ganjoo – but the team looks forward to enabling the delivery of medical drones, which is a significant need, especially during the current pandemic. “ANRA’s deep roots in India and my personal family ties make me particularly proud to have contributed to this historic moment for India, government officials and our partners,” said Ganjoo in a press release. “Knowing that our technology can soon help supply underserved populations with food and medical packages motivates and unites our team.”

“As a pioneer in investing in technology and logistics with its own delivery fleet, Swiggy has built a strong presence in hyper-local delivery that goes beyond groceries to bring convenience to consumers. As more and more technological innovations take place to make the last mile journey easier and faster, it is only natural for us to explore the latest available avenues to maximize the benefits for our consumers. We are excited to see the potential that drones offer and look forward to trying BVLOS operations for the food delivery use case. By working with ANRA, we want to make the most of the long-range knowledge of drone technology and conduct some groundbreaking experiments, ”said Shilpa Gnaneshwar, Principal Program Manager, Swiggy.

“ANRA Technologies and its partners intend to use data collected and key insights from the flights to support the development of India’s nationwide UAS Traffic Management (UTM) platform called Digital Sky,” the press release said. “The results will enable industry, government and regulatory actors to identify the need to support interaction and data exchange between UTM service providers while assessing the suitability and applicability of existing technology functions.”

In addition, the consortia will attempt to understand any tradeoffs between interoperability and open implementations and specific technical integration requirements for functionality while determining acceptable performance ranges for latency, reliability, uptime and ‘near real-time’ aspects of communication. It will also try to find out how other important new standards, including Remote ID and Detect and Avoid (DAA), can be integrated as part of a comprehensive Digital Sky UTM framework. “

India is reviewing operations to expedite its policies and prepare the local industry for a major foray into the global drone service segment: and Ganjoo says the Indian drone industry is ready. “There’s a lot of buzz and creation,” says Ganjoo. “The industry is starting” “

“At the end of the day, it’s going to be like Uber Eats or Door Dash – whether it’s food delivery or other things, middle or last mile, it will happen.”

Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a professional marketplace for drone services, and a passionate observer of the emerging drone industry and regulatory environment for drones. Author of over 3,000 articles focusing on the commercial drone space, Miriam is an international speaker and recognized figure in the industry. Miriam graduated from the University of Chicago and has over 20 years experience in high-tech sales and marketing for emerging technologies.
For advice or writing in the drone industry, email Miriam.

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