Civilian drone research and production center to open in Samara in Aug

SAMARA. Aug 7 (Interfax) - The first regional civilian drone research and production center will open in Samara in late August, the press service for the Samara regional government said.

Documents have been signed at the Archipelago 2023 design and educational workshop in Novosibirsk to establish the Samara center. Dmitry Peskov, chairman of the National Technological Initiative Platform board, Yury Kozarenko, general director of Transport of the Future Samara drone developer, and Alexander Sergiyenko, director of the Center for Innovative Development and Cluster Initiatives of the Samara region, which manages the Zhiguli Valley techo-park, signed the protocol.

The center will be responsible for scientific research, developing and adapting technologies, and mass production of drones and their components (electric motors, control drivers, propellers, case products, avionics, communications equipment, etc.). It will also draft regulations for the applied commercial use of drones in Russia and will serve as a drone certification center.

"The Samara civilian drone cluster, created at the initiative of Governor Dmitry Azarov, envisages 100% localization of drone production in the region, including developing and manufacturing domestic parts, test flights, elaborating a concept for commercial use, and drone servicing and maintenance. Our plant is under construction at the Samara cluster. Four facilities, among them workshops to assemble two kinds of drones and a workshop to make drone components, have already been built at the site," the press service quoted Kozarenko as saying.

The manufacturing plant is due to be ready in December, the press service said, citing Azarov.

The Transport of the Future facility in the Togliatti special economic zone will make agricultural drones, cargo drones with a lifting capacity of 200 kilograms, lighter drones with a top mass of 30 kilograms, and drone components for the Russian market.