An agency of the government of the United is behind a trial that enables the tracking of drone flights using the distributed ledger technology.

A recent trial held in two locations in the UK has shown promising results in collation and storage of data from drone flights. The trial was the culmination of a collaboration between Hedera, a decentralized technology company and Neuron Innovation, a London-based sensor technology company.

Hedera, a blockchain company behind the Hedera hashgraph worked with Neuron Innovation to collate, store and organize data from the trial which was sponsored by the

The concept behind the trial is to enable drones to join air traffic without much ado. It involved the collation and use of millions of data points in a way that enables the safety and air traffic control to monitor the position and flight paths of drones even after they have flown out of sight.

Niall Greenwood, who is the CEO of Neuron Innovation said:

“We have made unmanned, long distance drone travel possible using safety-critical aviation infrastructure. Each flight creates millions of data points, which no other public ledger has been fast enough to log and correctly order.”

Port Montrose, Scotland was the first location where the trial commenced last April. It was continued at Cranfield University in Bedfordshire in October 2021. The trial would enable the tracking of drones designed for commercial, military government uses in long-distance flights.

Registering Unmanned Flight Data On Public Ledger

While Hedera partnership with Neuron Innovation provided the expertise needed in time-stamp for collected drone flight data, Neuron’s sensors were used in tracking the flight data of the drones. Hedera is responsible for the consensus protocol used in registering the data in the decentralized public ledger.

This program is one of the initiatives of the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy meant to ensure that drone data are efficiently collated in a way that ensures accuracy of its location at every point of its flight.

Hedera’s proof-of-stake and proof-of-concept consensus are the drivers of the Hedera Consensus Service and have been used by the company in partnerships that reify real life problems by solving them using the distributed ledger technology.