From an Admiration for Field Robotics to Practical Research on Drone Implementation

Ever since I was a child, I have loved making things, and I enjoyed creating various objects with the carpentry tools at my grandfather's house. Living in Kagoshima, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) was a familiar presence, which sparked my interest and admiration for the field of field robotics, including probes like Hayabusa. In elementary school, I was shocked to see footage of Gunkanjima (Hashima Island) filmed by an early drone, then called a multicopter, equipped with a camera. This was the first time I learned about the existence of drones.

After entering junior high school, I took on the challenge of building my own drone with parts I collected, bought with my New Year's money or received as birthday gifts. I managed to get it to fly, but I was frustrated because the motor lacked enough thrust to carry a camera. This is the origin of my robot building.

In high school, I tackled the issue of marine pollution from microplastics and built an underwater drone using the drone software "ArduPilot" to collect samples from the seabed. This project won the Judges' Special Award at the Japan Science & Engineering Challenge (JSEC). Also, while I was a student, I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Takayuki Furuta, the Director of the Future Robotics Technology Center (fuRo) at the Chiba Institute of Technology. I was deeply impressed by his stories about robots like "Quince," which was used to explore the interior of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. This experience further fueled my passion for field robotics.

I wanted to conduct research related to drones and field robots in college, but not many universities were conducting drone research. Among them, SFC's drone research seemed to focus on a stage one step closer to practical application, and I was very attracted to its efforts toward social implementation. The ability to join a research group from an early stage and the interdisciplinary environment were also reasons why I chose SFC.

When I first enrolled, my priority was not to fail any courses, so I focused on taking required subjects. However, the curriculum at SFC is designed to allow students to freely engage in research and projects, so I had some extra time. So, I decided to participate in a rescue drone contest called the Japan Innovation Challenge (JIC) with two friends. We planned to design and build the drone ourselves, but we hit a wall due to funding and technical issues. Since we had already entered the competition, we sought help from Professor Keiji Takeda, who was introduced to us by a staff member. Despite our reckless entry, Professor Takeda kindly gave us advice, saying, "I think it might be a bit difficult this year. Why don't you join my research group and try again next year?"

And so, as a member of the Keiji Takeda Research Group, I began to work on research for JIC 2023 under the theme "Research and Development of Search and Rescue Support Technology for Mountain Accident Victims Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Drones)." In disaster situations, poor communication environments are expected, so it is necessary for the aircraft itself to operate semi-autonomously, receiving commands from a remote location. Therefore, in our research, we are developing a 25-kilogram class large-scale drone to deliver supplies to disaster sites and a cloud-based "Unmanned Aircraft Control System" to control it via a network connection.

SFC has the perfect environment for conducting drone flight experiments. By applying for permission to fly drones, we can conduct experiments under various scenarios using the fields on campus, which include buildings, roads, land, forests, and a reservoir.

For example, when simulating operations in an urban area, the campus has buildings and people. Also, because it is a lush, green campus, it is possible to simulate flying over areas like forests. There are also water surfaces and lawns, making it an environment where it is easy to verify the performance and accuracy of robots, drones, and their sensors. I believe it is rare to find an environment with such favorable conditions, and it would be difficult to realize elsewhere due to constraints such as aviation laws. While many other universities have traditional engineering-style laboratories that deeply research specific technologies, such as improving propeller efficiency, there are probably very few laboratories in Japan that can handle everything from the production of actual drones to the development of the entire system and flight experiments.

The ability to conduct flight experiments immediately on campus is incredibly valuable, as the amount of experimentation greatly affects the speed of development and the results. I think this environment at SFC is a huge advantage.

I started building the actual aircraft around May of my second year, and I was finally able to participate in JIC 2023. Of the two challenges at JIC 2023, we successfully completed Challenge 1, which was to find a mannequin with body heat simulating a mountain accident victim, using our completed aircraft. Challenge 2 was to deliver 3 kg of relief supplies to the victim's location, but unfortunately, our experimental aircraft, which was still under development, did not function properly, and we failed. Although the competition left us with challenges to overcome, I will continue to work on development and experiments related to my research theme to achieve our goals and produce results next time. And in the future, I hope to continue to be involved in the research and development of field robots at research institutions such as JAXA and JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology).