JRC REVIEW No.77 2026 Technical Reports

- Topics : Air Mobility -

Uncrewed aircraft are already widely used in the agricultural sector and are expected to play a significant role in transporting supplies during disasters, searching for missing persons, and logistics infrastructure. On the other hand, to ensure the safe use of uncrewed aircraft, it is an urgent issue for uncrewed aircraft to realize detection and avoidance technology between uncrewed aircraft and crewed aircraft, such as medical helicopters. Against this background, JRC has developed a non-cooperative detection and avoidance system in cooperation with private companies, entrusted and granted by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), a national research and development agency in Japan. We, a consortium of NEDO and private-sector companies including JRC, have conducted the world's first autonomous detection and avoidance test by installing devices (radar, camera, etc.) configuring the system on a single-rotor medium-sized uncrewed aircraft. Furthermore, JRC has reduced the size / power consumption of the system, realized its installation on a small-sized multicopter-type uncrewed aircraft, and demonstrated the feasibility of the technology by successfully detecting and avoiding a crewed helicopter at a relative speed of 200 km/h. Based on these achievements, JRC has collaborated with relevant organizations and private companies to work on the international standardization of detection and avoidance systems for uncrewed aircraft. This article describes these achievements.

Naoya Hiraki

- Technical articles -

Ensuring a stable communication environment is a crucial issue for the safe operation of uncrewed aerial vehicles used for transporting supplies to mountainous areas. In 2024, JRC constructed a communications system that enables flights beyond visual line of sight and conducted a field test of autopilot flight of an uncrewed aerial vehicle in the section from Sarukura Heliport, located at the foot of Mount Shirouma in the Northern Alps, to the vicinity of Hakuba Sanso Lodge, a mountain hut. The results of this field test and the radio wave propagation test conducted prior to it demonstrated that a communications network capable of supporting long-distance flight paths (distance 4.6 km, elevation difference 1,500 m) was established, and was confirmed that telemetry and control information could be transmitted between the uncrewed aircraft vehicle and the ground regardless of the vehicle's position within the flight path. This article provides an overview of the communication system and reports on the results of a field test conducted in the Hakuba area of Nagano Prefecture.

Mio Kaise
Masashi Kubota

- Technical articles -

JRC has developed a motion surveillance system that uses a small number of cameras to continuously monitor a wide area by applying edge AI-based image recognition sensors, which utilize omnidirectional cameras and an integrated management function to address aging social infrastructure and labor shortages. The system has realized an intrusion detection and automatic tracking capability that continuously monitors a wide area using multiple sensors by integrating information on moving objects detected by the sensors, determining similarity based on object coordinates and velocity vectors, and establishing a data association method that correctly recognizes the same object. In the developed system, JRC has confirmed the effectiveness of the continuous monitoring and tracking functions for objects moving across the monitoring areas of each sensor by ensuring the reliable handover of object information between multiple sensors.

Yuki Ikeda
Nobutoshi Takaki
Hiroyuki Nishio

- Technical articles -

Millimeter-wave radar is one of the "sensors for grasping the surrounding environment" that is essential for realizing autonomous driving and driving assistance systems for industrial vehicles (small mobility), such as agricultural and construction machinery. To capture the surrounding environment in three dimensions with millimeter-wave radar, a receiving antenna with over 100 elements is required. In response to this, JRC is working on developing a three-dimensional detection technology using millimeter-wave radar that applies array extension technology, which virtually increases the number of receiving antennas through signal processing from a small number of physically mounted antennas to suppress an increase in radar housing size and other dimensions. However, this technology has the problem of generating false echoes during the array extension process. JRC has developed a method for false echo suppression as a solution and has experimentally confirmed its effectiveness. By combining JRC’s newly developed method with three-dimensional detection technology and putting it into practical use, it is expected that the ability of industrial vehicles to grasp their surrounding environment will be improved.

Naoya Kezuka