ANRA, Swiggy launch India's first end-to-end BVLOS drone delivery trials

June 16, 2021: The integrated airspace management firm, ANRA Technologies, and the leading on-demand delivery platform, Swiggy, today announced that stakeholders from the India ministry of defence (MoD), Directorate General of Aviation (DGCA), and ministry of civil aviation (MOCA), awarded final clearances for the ANRA Technologies led consortia to commence trials for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations in India.

"Months of planning, risk assessments, air traffic control integration, training, equipment preparation, and coordination culminated with ANRA's flight team launching its first sortie on June 16, 2021," reads the release. 

ANRA Technologies, with offices in New Delhi, London, and Washington DC,  is an international provider of airspace management solutions for unmanned aircraft operators and airspace managers.

For the next several weeks, the flight team will conduct BVLOS food and medical package deliveries in the Etah and Rupnagar districts using ANRA SmartSkies technology. 

Out of the selected participants in the program, ANRA is the only UAS technology provider approved by the government of India MOCA to lead two consortia as part of this pioneering initiative. One consortium consists of ANRA, along with their partners Swiggy, Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar, and BetterDrones, a drone service provider which will focus on food delivery. The second consortium includes ANRA and Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar, and will focus on medical deliveries.

Amit Ganjoo, founder and CEO of ANRA, said, "Knowing our technology may soon help deliver food and medical packages to underserved populations are what motivates and unifies our team."

The BVLOS delivery operations are enabled by ANRA SmartSkies CTR and SmartSkies DELIVERY platforms. A coordinated, scalable, and highly adaptable family of software services, SmartSkies provides execution and management of drone operations in controlled and uncontrolled airspace, ensuring the safety of the Indian National Airspace and seamless integration into the country's legacy air traffic control systems.

Shilpa Gnaneshwar, principal programme manager, Swiggy, said, "As a pioneer in investing in technology and logistics with a dedicated delivery fleet, Swiggy has built a robust presence in hyperlocal delivery moving beyond food to offer convenience to consumers. With an increasing number of technological innovations taking place to smoothen and fasten the last mile journey, it only becomes natural for us to explore the latest avenues available to maximize the benefit to our consumers. We are excited about the potential that Drones offer and look forward to the trials on BVLOS operations for the use case of food delivery. Through our association with ANRA, we aim to put the long-range proficiencies of drone technology to best use and accomplish some ground-breaking trials."

ANRA Technologies and its partners intend to leverage gathered data and key learnings from the flights to support the development of India's nationwide operational UAS Traffic Management (UTM) platform called Digital Sky. The outcomes will enable industry, government, and regulatory stakeholders to determine the necessity to support interaction and data exchange between UTM services suppliers while assessing the suitability and applicability of existing technology capabilities.

Prof. S S Padhee, head, corporate relation Cell, IIT Ropar, said, "IIT Ropar will partner with ANRA Technologies leading two consortia aimed at package delivery. The recent Covid-19 has shown that remote and unmanned delivery of essential items can not only be a usual business proposition but can be a life-saving endeavour aimed at restricting infections under such emergencies. IIT Ropar has already started efforts in this direction. I'm sure the present collaboration will bring out products and services of significant business and social impact."

Kanav Kumar, director, Better Drones, said, "The Better Drones team is excited about this upcoming opportunity, the team is ready to perform their best to make sure that soon we all can utilise this breakthrough technology for multiple purposes. We look forward to using our best endeavours to make sure that we will succeed in this challenge with flying colours."

Additionally, the consortia will seek to understand any trade-offs between interoperability and open implementations and specific technical integration requirements for functionality while determining acceptable performance envelopes for latency, reliability, availability times, and near real-time aspects of communications. It will also seek to establish how other key emerging standards, including Remote-ID and Detect and Avoid (DAA), may be integrated as part of an overall Digital Sky UTM framework.