Moscow. january 28th. INTERFAX - Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a number of instructions to the government that will help simplify access for civilian drones to the airspace shared with manned aircraft.
"It is necessary rather, as experts say, to open the sky for civilian drones (...) With all the current objective difficulties and increased safety requirements, this is a fundamental issue for the rapid development of the industry, for testing and mass production of new products," the president said at a meeting on the development of unmanned aircraft on Tuesday.
Putin called the establishment of a new class of airspace for drone flights one of the proposed measures. The appearance of such a separate class, limited to a height of 500 m (possible name "H"), was announced last November by the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency Dmitry Yadrov.
"I am asking the government to adopt all the necessary regulatory framework by June 1 of this year, to determine specific flight heights or, as experts say, echelons for drones. Moving from one echelon to another is the most critical thing. Everything needs to be worked out properly," Putin said.
"Secondly, I think that in those regions where it is justified by safety, and where there are other necessary conditions for this, drone flights should be allowed. And I ask the government to prepare concrete decisions in this regard by April 30 of this year," the president added.
He noted that some regions of the Russian Federation already have practical experience in managing unmanned aircraft, including Sakhalin, where the Archipelago industry forum was held. These developments "need to be extended to other regions."
"In this regard, I consider it advisable to annually assess which entities create the best conditions for the development of the use of unmanned systems. I ask the participants of the National Technology Initiative to develop and implement an appropriate rating," Putin said.
The work on opening the airspace to civilian drones must be carried out in compliance with "strict safety requirements - but not through widespread bans and total bureaucratic regulation, but through new technological solutions," the president stressed. In particular, it is important to actively implement domestic developments that will ensure reliable sky monitoring: detection systems, tracking drones, and their end-to-end identification in real time.
"In general, it is necessary to introduce a fundamentally new mechanism for managing and coordinating flights of all types of aircraft from small copters to long-range aircraft and spacecraft. The point is to build a so-called seamless architecture of air and space, where all objects are connected and interact safely and effectively with each other. To do this, it is necessary to form a ground infrastructure and create satellite groupings. By June 1 of this year, it is necessary to determine a detailed, step-by-step plan for this work. I ask my colleagues from the government and Roscosmos to remove all interdepartmental contradictions and determine the necessary parameters for these groups," Putin continued.
