Transparency and development: ERA-GLONASS opens the skies to civilian drones

Starting from March 1, 2026, Russia will begin mandatory connection of all civil aircraft to the ERA-GLONASS state information system. This is not just a new rule approved today by the government of the country, but another step towards the creation of a unified national identification system for unmanned vehicles. Read about how the state creates a transparent and manageable environment where every drone will be visible in the palm of your hand in the Izvestia publication.

The digital sky as a new reality

Today, drone flights are restricted or prohibited in many regions due to the inability to track and identify them in real time. A unified system based on ERA-GLONASS, successfully tested in 35 regions, is designed to solve this problem. It allows you to see not just points on the map, but complete information: flight track, data about the operator and owner, speed, altitude. Thanks to such a digital tool, regional authorities will be able to gradually mitigate enforced bans, opening up entire geofences of different scales and corridors for legal flights.

As Alexey Raikevich, General Director of GLONASS JSC, explains, the technology allows for the installation of flexible geofences — from a small field to the territory of an entire region.

— The ERA-GLONASS-based identification system allows you to install geofences for flights of unmanned aerial vehicles with the ability to scale routes, for example, from several agricultural fields and an infrastructure facility to the territory of an entire region. This approach will become a tool for gradually opening up the sky and easing restrictions," Rajkevich emphasizes.

Andrey Nikitin, Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation, notes that the massive introduction of autonomous vehicles requires the formation of a national technological ecosystem for managing unmanned mobility.

"The unified identification system based on ERA—GLONASS will become the core and key tool for state monitoring of civil unmanned aircraft in real time," the minister notes. "At the same time, we are expanding the possibilities of using such a platform for autonomous transport in all environments — all unmanned trucks on the M-11 Neva, TSKAD, and M-4 Don motorways are connected, and monitoring of unmanned boats in the Sakhalin Region is underway.

To scale the platform in the interests of developing unmanned aircraft, the Russian equivalent of DroneID, a hybrid remote identification system for unmanned aircraft in areas without cellular communications or surveillance infrastructure, is currently being tested and implemented. And from March 1, 2027, manned small aircraft (aircraft weighing up to 15 tons) will also be connected to ERA-GLONASS, which will make the airspace unified and controlled for all its participants.

A view from the regions

For regions, especially remote ones, drones are a necessity. The Sakhalin Region has become one of the pilot regions for testing the system. Vyacheslav Alenkov, Deputy Chairman of the regional government, calls it "a powerful catalyst for turning unmanned aircraft from an exotic into a routine, reliable and effective tool for developing the economy of the Far East and the country as a whole."

— We consider the creation of an identification system for unmanned vehicles based on ERA-GLONASS, the data of which will be free for the region, as a key and long-awaited step by the state. This system should be the same for unmanned aircraft as popular mapping services are for public transport, with the arrival time at each stop," Alenkov notes.

In his opinion, uniform rules of the game and the introduction of Russian communication technologies into the system will remove unnecessary administrative barriers for businesses, attract investments and create new high-tech jobs on Sakhalin.

The regional authorities see the future system as the basis for major projects: regular unmanned lines between islands or to the mainland. This approach will ensure the safe sharing of airspace, opening the way for complex logistical routes.

— Drones are already a tool for effectively solving critical tasks: monitoring energy and transport infrastructure, delivering goods and medical samples to remote villages, protecting forests, supporting agriculture and the fishing industry. This winter, for example, with the help of drones, we are promptly assessing the condition of the roofs of residential buildings in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, which increases the safety of thousands of people," notes Alenkov.

An incentive for the economy and business

Industry experts see the innovation as the basis for economic growth. Maxim Chizhov, Chairman of the Board of directors of Kitoglav, a developer of unmanned aerial vehicles, believes that the system will provide an incentive to scale up the use of agricultural drones in agriculture by reducing restrictions.

— For example, agricultural drones, their use in the country from several thousand may grow to tens of thousands in the next three years, — he predicts. — For the agricultural sector, this means increasing labor productivity, reducing dependence on attracting migrants through robotics, and increasing the prestige of working in the agricultural sector.

Alexey Varyatchenko, an expert in the field of unmanned aircraft, says that currently no more than 20% of agricultural drones are legally used in Russia.

— The lifting of regional bans with the help of the system, albeit partially, will allow, firstly, to increase the number of cars by five times — up to 10 thousand agricultural trucks. Secondly, it will increase revenue for operators: if you take the revenue of each drone per season, it's about 8-10 million rubles, and we're talking about contracts worth billions of rubles," the expert says.

This means a real breakthrough in the productivity and robotization of entire industries.

Security and new features

The system is designed not only to regulate, but also to ensure security at a fundamentally new level. In the future, it is planned to introduce services to protect against cyber attacks and centralized notification, including for the forced shutdown of the drone. Dmitry Tretyakov, CEO of Aurora-BAS, whose company is already testing the system, calls integration with ERA-GLONASS not just the installation of "beacons", but the connection to the national digital ecosystem.

"I am confident that the joint work of the Russian government and leading regions such as Sakhalin on the development of the identification system will expand the geography of flights and stimulate the emergence of thousands of new commercial routes for unmanned aerial vehicles," Tretyakov notes. — From this point of view, we assess the creation of an identification system based on ERA-GLONASS as a state infrastructure investment in the emerging field of civil unmanned aviation.

In his opinion, there are no quick and ready solutions anywhere in the world to integrate unmanned aircraft into the common airspace, "but the first practical step in Russia has been taken with the launch of a unified identification system."

With the help of the data obtained, it will be possible to build complex routes to pave the way for socially significant projects: regular delivery of medicines and laboratory tests between settlements, monitoring of thousands of kilometers of pipelines and power grids, where guaranteed route control is vital.

The international context

Russia is not alone in the new trend — starting from May 1, a similar identification standard will come into force in China. As Senator Artem Sheikin notes, this opens up a unique opportunity for a strategic partnership. He proposed using a unified identification system based on ERA-GLONASS to accelerate the creation of an unmanned corridor between the Amur Region and China.

—Within the framework of the interdepartmental working group established by the Russian Ministry of Transport, we will work on the integration and use of the Russian identification system so that flight data is available to both Russia and China within the framework of the project, as well as the formation of the necessary legal framework for the organization of air transportation," the senator emphasizes.

Sheikin is confident that "both countries are at the forefront of the development of unmanned technologies today, and such a joint project will form a common digital sky between our countries, allowing the world to be the first to realize the prospects for cross-border unmanned delivery."

Thus, the mandatory connection to ERA-GLONASS is a strategic step that changes the very philosophy of regulation: not to prohibit, but to make it transparent and manageable. As Tatiana Gorovaya, First Deputy General Director of the Center for Strategic Research and Chairman of the Public Council under the Ministry of Transport of Russia, concludes, this approach "creates the basis for the legal and mass use of unmanned aircraft in civilian industries," when technology development follows common, understandable rules, which should lead to the establishment of unmanned aircraft in Russia as a real sector of the economy..