Japan’s first safety test for a manned helicopter and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operating in the same flight area

NAGOYA-Japan, December, 2017 – PRODRONE Co., Ltd, New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), SUBARU Corporation, and enRoute Co., Ltd., together with the cooperation of Fukushima Prefecture and Minamisoma City have conducted Japan’s first safety test for a manned helicopter and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operating in the same flight area. The test took place at the future location of the Fukushima Robot Testing Field, located inside of the Minamisoma Reconstruction Industrial Park in Minamisoma City, Fukushima.

Recently in Japan, operations of UAV is boosted by increase of manned flight capable of operating at the low altitude such as medical-use helicopter.

That is why it is an urgent issue to build performance of collision-avoidance. In this test, we acquired basic data of mutual visibility and impact on UAV by downwash created by manned helicopter.

We plan to build performance evaluation Standards regarding collision-avoidance of UAV through a combination of examining the data from this test and making further efforts.

For more information, visit at: http://www.nedo.go.jp/news/press/AA5_100887.html