Japan Coast Guard starts demonstration test of unmanned aerial vehicle today October 15, 5:08
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The Japan Coast Guard will start demonstration experiments off Sanriku and the Sea of Japan from the 15th to verify whether unmanned aerial vehicles can be used for searching for marine accidents and monitoring suspicious ships.
The unmanned propeller plane "Sea Guardian" of the American defense company "General Atomics" will be used for the demonstration experiment, which is about 12 meters long and 24 meters wide, and will fly continuously for more than a full day to be exclusive to Japan. It has the ability to go around the outermost part of the economic zone.
The Japan Coast Guard uses 33 airplanes and 52 helicopters to search for marine accidents that occur in the waters around Japan and to monitor and control suspicious ships, but is considering introducing unmanned aerial vehicles to strengthen the system. It was decided to do.
The experiments will be conducted off Sanriku and the Sea of Japan, and will fly according to prior programming based on the Hachinohe Air Base of the Self-Defense Forces in Aomori Prefecture, and will be remotely controlled wirelessly from a control facility on the ground.
Radar and high-quality cameras are attached to the aircraft to verify whether radar information and images taken by the cameras arrive in real time, and whether there are any problems with flight safety.
This means that the aircraft will not fly over a residential area except for takeoff and landing.
The demonstration experiment is scheduled to be conducted until the 10th of next month, spending more than 900 million yen.
Demonstration experiment Confirmation of suspicious ship's identification ability and position grasping ability
In the demonstration experiment, "Sea Guardian" will fly off the coast of the Sea of Japan from western Japan to northern Japan, including the Pacific Ocean off Sanriku in the Tohoku region, the area around the Ogasawara Islands, and "Yamatotai" where illegal fishing by foreign fishing boats is occurring one after another. Besides, it is the coast of Sado in Niigata prefecture and the coast of Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture.
A total of 150 hours of flights are planned 13 times during the period in these sea areas, and in addition to confirming safety, patrol boats that look like suspicious boats will be navigated, and the altitude at which they can be identified and manned aircraft In the same way as above, check whether you can send a voice message from the aircraft wirelessly to give a warning, or release a rescue raft that looks like a rescuer to the sea and grasp the exact position from the sky.
In addition, in the waters around the Ogasawara Islands, we will confirm the ability of oceanographic surveys by observing Nishinoshima, where active eruptive activity continues.