ShinMaywa INSIGHT

Achieving Practical Applications of the Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle XU-S : (7)

December 24, 2021

Aircraft Division Research and Development

First in Japan! Conducting Aerial Surveys of Marine Debris via Level 3 Flights with a Fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Our Aircraft Division is continuing research and development of the fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle XU-S (Experimental Unmanned/Utility aircraft by ShinMaywa). The unmanned aerial vehicle, which is powered by LiPo (Lithium Ion Polymer) batteries and has the unique ability to perform extended flights without generating exhaust gas, is capable of monitoring flights over a wide, high-altitude area.

While the Aircraft Division has participated in demonstration tests using the XU-S for environmental monitoring and radio wave propagation in the past, on October 18 and 19, 2021 and on November 1 and 4, a demonstration experiment featuring “level 3” aerial survey of marine debris by a fixed-wing UAV was conducted, the first of its kind in Japan. The experiment was conducted with the cooperation of Tsushima City and Tsushima Airport in Nagasaki Prefecture.

This project was adopted under the theme jointly proposed by ShinMaywa along with Tsushima City (co-proposal municipality) and Meiji University’s Institute of Autonomous Driving (MIAD) as part of the “Demonstration Project for an Operational Management System that Takes into Account Regional Characteristics and Expandability” (Regional Demonstration). This project was planned by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), with Persol Process & Technology Co., Ltd. serving as secretariat and gathering public support, as part of the “Drones and Robots for Ecologically Sustainable Societies project (DRESS Project)” sponsored by NEDO.

In this demonstration test, the following three accomplishments were the first of their kind in Japan:

Aerial survey of marine debris with level 3 flights (unmanned area, no assistant personnel, and beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS))
Level 3 flights with an airport that operates regular flights serving as the takeoff and landing point
Connection between a fixed-wing UAV controlled and managed by satellite communication and a unmanned aerial system traffic management (UTM) system

In the demonstration test, we conducted flights connected to the UTM developed by the DRESS project. The development of the interface for connecting the XU-S and UTM was carried out by ShinMaywa Soft Technologies, Ltd., a group company of ours.

The test flights were conducted with the XU-S controlled and managed via satellite communication from Tushima Airport, which served as the base for takeoff and landing. Multiple level 3 flights were carried out to conduct coastal aerial surveys and searches for floating objects at sea, covering the sea off the western coast of Tsushima Island, with one flight recording approx. 63 km of continuous flight and a maximum time of 1 hour and 12 minutes.

The test successfully captured aerial views of both debris washed up on the coast and debris drifting in the sea, capturing images from locations that conventional rotary-wing drones lack the flight time and range to reach.

Currently, investigations of washed-up debris on Tsushima Island are conducted by investigators who land by boat and survey on foot, but conducting thorough surveys is difficult given the wide area that needs to be covered. Real-world application of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles to conduct the aerial surveys demonstrated in this test are expected to improve the efficiency of surveys and the detailed information gleaned from them. Further, if floating debris is detected from the air, in the near future, it may be possible to retrieve it by boat before it washes ashore, which can improve the environment.

Going forward, in a wide range of fields that includes monitoring, surveillance, and communication, the Aircraft Division aims to establish an engineering business that includes designing and manufacturing UAVs tailored to users’ operational needs and requirements in addition to providing services for which demonstration tests were conducted, such as the atmospheric pollution and marine debris aerial surveys.