ANRA in Japan: Demonstrating Airspace Management and Drone Delivery Platforms

ANRA takes flight in Japan,  showcasing airspace management and drone delivery platforms.

by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M. Crosby

Today, ANRA Technologies, a leader in integrated airspace, mission management and delivery systems for uncrewed aircraft, announced that it will be participating in live drone flights over Japan as part of a project led by the National Institute of New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). ANRA will be demonstrating its airspace management and drone delivery software platforms as part of the project, which aims to develop a drone traffic management system for multiple drone operators to fly in the same airspace safely.

As a major player in the NEDO Drones and Robots for Ecologically Sustainable Societies (DRESS) Regional Demonstration project, ANRA Technologies, alongside other partners such as BIRD INITIATIVE, NEC Corporation, and All Nippon Airways (ANA), are exhibiting drone operations and relevant use cases in Wakkanai City in Japan with the use of ANRA SmartSkies™ airspace and delivery management software platforms. Over the course of the last several years, NEDO has been researching and developing integrated traffic management in order to design the framework for a nationwide traffic management system. The goal of the project is to establish an assortment of functions and systems to guarantee the safe integration of uncrewed aircraft into the National Airspace System safely. The project will hold demonstrations featuring drone-based logistics, infrastructure inspection and disaster response use cases.

The coordination and negotiation of the airspace used between operators between drones is essential in decentralized UTM in order to prevent collisions. The project employs the use of automatic negotiation AI technology, which is being researched and developed with RIKEN and Industrial Technology Research Institute, as well as digital twin technology, which is being researched with the National Institute of Informatics.

Collaborating with Municipal Wakkanai Hospital and Ein Pharmacy, ANA is experimenting with prescription drug delivery via drone to remote disconnected areas.

For this project, ANRA’s SmartSkies™ CTR UTM platform is hooked up to a central Flight Information Management System (FIMS) and operates both federated and centralized UTM architectures. The project is also taking advantage of the SmartSkies™ Delivery platform connected to the drones, in order to guarantee that the drones will safely and efficiently deliver their payload.

ANRA’s delivery software offers a network that allows for seamless drone deliveries through managing orders, inventory, and provisioning products – before safely operating the drone within its UTM network. The software makes use of its airspace management technology to allow for safe flight routing for the drone while also bringing tracking and status updates to the customer via mobile app. ANRA’s solution interfaces with all the necessary stakeholders by granting important information and data exchanges for compliant and effective delivery operations. The entire solution is hosted and deployed in secure cloud infrastructure based in Tokyo.

The test’s involvement of drone operators such as ANA will illustrate the necessity of a drone traffic management system, as well as the efficiency of relevant security measures set in place for this deployment.

Read more about ANRA’s international drone delivery projects, medical drone delivery, and UTM Testing.

Ian attended Dominican University of California, where he received a BA in English in 2019. With a lifelong passion for writing and storytelling and a keen interest in technology, he is now contributing to DroneLife as a staff writer.