The company plans to develop the concept for its cargo drone program at its ESR Higashi Ogishima Distribution Centre project, with plans to expand the program to other facilities across the region

Logistics real estate specialist ESR is getting ready for the future of high speed delivery with an initiative to design and demonstrate the world’s first cargo drone facility at Tokyo area warehouse project.

The Hong Kong-listed warehouse developer and fund manager announced late last week that it has begun working with UK drone development startup VRCO to establish the tech program as a way to explore building a fleet of automated drones to accelerate and streamline delivery of cargo by air.

The ability to move high value, time sensitive cargo directly from our distribution centre to its destination presents a significant value proposition for ESR’s tenants and operators, ESR co-founder and co-chief executive Stuart Gibson said in a statement.

The company plans to develop the concept for its cargo drone program at its ESR Higashi Ogishima Distribution Centre, a 365,385 square metre (3.9 million square foot) project that it began building earlier this month, with plans to expand the program to other facilities in Japan and across the region.

The goal of ESR’s collaboration with VRCO, a five-year old startup aimed at developing electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, is to validate how ESR’s tenants can use eVTOL airframes to transform the movement of commercial cargo from warehouses, the company said in its statement.

Part of the cooperation will be establishing a command centre at the Higashi Ogishima facility which will enable delivery firms to manage air transport of cargo under all weather conditions and at varying volumes of demand. Key to the program is a flight infrastructure modelling system developed by VRCO under its Future of Flight simulator division, which will allow for testing potential drone applications.