Drones

An international drone race will be held in November as one of events at the Tokyo Motor Show, which will start in late October, the organizing committee said Monday.

The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and Sky Perfect JSAT Corp. have successfully conducted a test to detect a missing person in mountain areas using a drone operated via satellite communications.

The Niigata municipal government Sunday showed Group of 20 and other officials devices for smart agriculture, such as an autonomous rice-planting machine and a drone.

The Group of Twenty Agriculture Ministers Meeting concluded Sunday with calls to feed a growing global population and promote sustainable agriculture through new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics and drones, and to increase cooperation among farmers, nonfarm businesses and academia.

Japan has fought long and hard in trade talks to protect its rice growers from foreign competition. Now the government wants to help them go global.

Tokyo-based venture company A.L.I. Technologies Inc. aims to release a mass-market flying motorcycle by 2022, Chief Executive Officer Shuhei Komatsu said.

The relaxation of regulations on drone operations has spurred the expansion of their fields of use, with some delivering parcels or doing challenging infrastructural inspections. The latest in drones are being unveiled at Japan Drone 2019, one of the nation’s largest drone fairs, which runs through Friday at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba.

With the market for business-use unmanned aircraft looking promising in coming years, a large-scale drone expo that kicked off Wednesday showed more companies are eager to get involved with the industry.

Japan is joining the international race to add artificial intelligence and drones to its defense capabilities, driven by a need to deploy its forces more effectively as population decline thins their ranks.

The government has begun to consider introducing unmanned underwater vehicles capable of detecting submarines and other vessels with a view to beefing up warning and surveillance capabilities against subs dispatched by the Chinese military or by other countries to the East China Sea, where the Senkaku Islands of Okinawa Prefecture are located.