Unifly Joins EDA’s MIL-UAS-SPECIFIC 3 Project for Defense Drone Risk Assessment

Terra Drone Corporation, a leading drone and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) technology company headquartered in Japan, announced that its group company and a global leader in UAS Traffic Management (UTM) solutions, Unifly, has joined the European Defence Agency (EDA)-led project MIL-UAS-SPECIFIC 3 (“the Project”). The Project aims to establish a standardized approach to pre-flight risk assessment across Europe for operations involving drones in the defense and security domain, enhancing safety, interoperability, and efficiency.

Project Background and Purpose

The Project, led by the European Defence Agency (EDA), aims to harmonize the varying national standards for pre-flight drone risk assessment across Europe in the defense and security domain.

In Europe, drones are increasingly being deployed in public safety and governmental operations, including defense, disaster response, and security. In the defense and security domain, many operations involve high-risk flights such as beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) or over populated areas, which often require special authorizations or approvals from national authorities. In these applications, precise risk assessments and strict compliance with mitigation measures prescribed by national authorities are required, making the process complex and demanding advanced expertise. Furthermore, as risk assessment standards and processes currently differ from country to country, preparation costs and administrative burdens increase, creating challenges for cross-border operations.

To address this challenge, harmonizing the risk assessment standards used for obtaining drone flight approvals across Europe will enhance safety, interoperability, and efficiency, while reducing the costs and burdens of national application processes and facilitating smoother cross-border operations.

Why Unifly Joined the Project

Unifly develops and provides unmanned traffic management (UTM) systems that support the safe and efficient operation of drones. In April 2025, the company acquired EuroUSC Italia S.r.l. (“EuroUSC Italia”) as a wholly owned subsidiary, with the aim of building an integrated platform that seamlessly supports the entire process from pre-flight risk assessment to operational management (Note 1).

EuroUSC Italia provides global advisory services on drone regulations, safety, and pre-flight authorization processes, with a primary focus on risk assessment support based on the Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) framework (Note 2). The framework has been adopted in more than 40 countries including EU member states, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates. Leveraging its proprietary risk assessment support software, EuroUSC Italia has been driving the digitalization and streamlining of complex application processes that require advanced expertise.

Building on this expertise, Unifly is participating in the Project through EuroUSC Italia. The company will collaborate with national authorities and operators to promote the harmonization and practical implementation of pre-flight risk assessment standards.

Project Overview

In the preliminary phase of this initiative, Unifly defined risk requirements for both air and ground domains, proposed a roadmap to update these definitions in line with regulatory changes, and developed a prototype of an online risk assessment tool. Building on these achievements, Unifly will play a central role in driving the Project forward. 

Its planned contributions include:

• Refining requirements: Enhancing risk assessment standards by incorporating defense- and security-specific requirements.
• Tool enhancement: Upgrading the online tool with improved networking capabilities.
• External integration: Strengthening integration between the online tool and geographic datasets, such as population density, provided by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) (Note 3).
• Implementation support: Leading validation exercises and workshops to promote practical implementation.

For more information, please visit our website: http://www.terra-drone.net