YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, July 16 The government approved a resolution on the inclusion of the Sakhalin region in the experimental legal regime (EPR) «Aerologistics» for testing drones as part of the design and educational intensive «Archipelago 2024» , informs the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.
“Thanks to the EPR, it will be possible to test “heavy” drones weighing more than 30 kg as part of the Archipelago activities aimed at developing the domestic unmanned aviation industry and increasing the country’s technological independence,” the department said in a statement. 
According to the press service, this corresponds to the goals of the development strategy for unmanned aircraft and the national project «Unmanned Aircraft Systems», which are supervised by Deputy Chairman of the Government Vitaly Savelyev. Within the framework of the EPR, conditions have been created for testing scenarios for the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) with the participation of teams from federal and regional authorities, companies participating in the implementation of the state civil order for UAS.
Testing of the drones will take place on the territory of the Pushisty airfield in the south of Sakhalin, a region with the most difficult physical and geographical conditions (climate, topography, hydrological and geochemical conditions). This will allow us to gain experience in using drones in non-standard conditions and develop ready-made solutions for subsequent scaling.
«The expansion of the Aerologistics EPR to the territory of Sakhalin will give a wide range of UAS developers, participants in the Archipelago 2024 intensive course, the opportunity to test heavy drones with a takeoff weight of over 30 kg as quickly as possible and with minimal costs for document preparation,» the press service quotes Yuri Molodykh, director of the Up Great technology competition system development center of the NTI Foundation.
In his opinion, conditions for flights have been created at the Archipelago, including a prepared EPR, a team of experts from the Aerologistics technological competition who work on the site, and a special version of the Nebosvod system. Molodykh emphasized that thanks to the experiment conducted on Sakhalin, it will be possible to collect a large amount of fundamentally new data both on individual models of drones and on mass testing of various models of technical means for their identification. As part of the intensive, it is planned to test airspace control technologies, including over critical infrastructure facilities (anti-drone systems, means of protection against the illegal use of drones), and test solutions in the field of artificial intelligence, design and autonomous flights.
The annual design and educational intensive “Archipelago” is taking place this year in the Sakhalin region from July 8 to July 21. The main venues for representatives of technology companies and startups, engineering and management teams of regions and universities, representatives of scientific organizations that are developing projects in the field of new technologies, including hydrogen, were Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and the Pushisty airfield in the Korsakov region. The event was organized by the Platform of the National Technology Initiative (NTI), the Government of the Sakhalin Region, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, the NTI Project Support Fund and University 2035.