UK: ANRA Technologies Leads Consortium, Backed by UK CAA “Airspace Modernisation Support Fund” 

The UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) has award­ed a grant from the Air­space Mod­erni­sa­tion Sup­port Fund (ASF) to a con­sor­tium led by ANRA Tech­nolo­gies, to advance shared air­space drone oper­a­tions in Lan­cashire, reports a press release.

The Con­sor­tium are:- 

: Lan­cashire Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice (LFRS). 

: Man­na Drone Deliv­ery. 

: Wing. 

Man­na Drone Deliv­ery

The release explains, “The project will deliv­er the UK’s first oper­a­tional demon­stra­tion of mul­ti-UTM ser­vice provider sup­port for over­lap­ping Beyond Visu­al Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone oper­a­tions in shared air­space, direct­ly sup­port­ing the UK’s Air­space Mod­erni­sa­tion Strat­e­gy (AMS).”

Stu­art Lind­sey, Head of Air­space Mod­erni­sa­tion at the CAA, com­ment­ed, “The AMS Sup­port Fund exists to accel­er­ate prac­ti­cal inno­va­tion and research by enabling the oper­a­tional eval­u­a­tion of live, mul­ti-stake­hold­er BVLOS oper­a­tions to inform the UK’s Future of Flight Pro­gram, as well as the next stages of UK air­space pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­tion.”

The consortium’s project uses oper­a­tional lessons from the ongo­ing U.S UAS Traf­fic Man­age­ment (UTM) Imple­men­ta­tion, by bring­ing the knowl­edge accrued to Lan­cashire, where the team is to con­duct live tri­als through a mul­ti-phase approach. 

The work will val­i­date inter­op­er­abil­i­ty, gov­er­nance frame­works and coop­er­a­tive oper­at­ing prin­ci­ples for safe­ly man­ag­ing com­mer­cial and emer­gency ser­vice drone oper­a­tions in shared air­space.

Amit Gan­joo, Founder and CEO of ANRA Tech­nolo­gies, remarked, “We look for­ward to work­ing with the CAA and our part­ners to cre­ate a scal­able, evi­dence-based mod­el for BVLOS oper­a­tions that sup­ports the AMS and unlocks new com­mer­cial and pub­lic safe­ty oppor­tu­ni­ties.”

Bob­by Healy, CEO of Man­na Drone Deliv­ery, added, “Man­na is delight­ed to help bring real-world drone deliv­ery expe­ri­ence to this impor­tant UK ini­tia­tive. We look for­ward to demon­strat­ing how fast, safe and scal­able drone deliv­ery ser­vices can oper­ate along­side oth­er oper­a­tors in com­plex air­space envi­ron­ments.”

Amit Gan­joo

The release con­tin­ues, “Work­ing with the CAA, the team will val­i­date coop­er­a­tive oper­at­ing prin­ci­ples to sup­port both com­mer­cial and emer­gency drone ser­vices, help­ing shape future UK pol­i­cy and accel­er­ate nation­al UTM deploy­ment.” 

It adds, “As part of this effort, the project will also assess dif­fer­ences between U.S. imple­men­ta­tion and UK reg­u­la­tions, pro­vid­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for adop­tion that align with the evolv­ing UK CAA frame­work, ulti­mate­ly help­ing shape future UK pol­i­cy and accel­er­ate nation­al UTM deploy­ment.”

The ASF, which builds on the ear­li­er Future Air­space Strat­e­gy Facil­i­ta­tion Fund, sup­ports projects that advance the objec­tives of CAP 1711 by accel­er­at­ing air­space mod­erni­sa­tion in ways that ben­e­fit mul­ti­ple stake­hold­ers and enable future indus­try-wide deploy­ment. 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.anratechnologies.com/home/

https://www.manna.aero

https://www.lancsfirerescue.org.uk

https://www.caa.co.uk

https://wing.com

(Top image: ANRA Tech­nolo­gies)

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