The Japanese pest control company Duskin Co. has come up with a new way to safely remove wasp nests. The company developed a drone with a vacuum cleaner on board, with which the insects can be safely sucked out of their nest. The nests are then much easier to remove by pest controllers.
A 90-year-old Japanese farmer recently passed a drone training and flying exam. Mamoru Tanaka is sick of walking around his rice fields while carrying more than 60 pounds of fertilizer on his back. The goal is to deploy an agricultural drone to sprinkle fertilizer over the fields in a smart and targeted manner. The farmer intends to get a permit to fly heavy drones as the following step.
The Japanese Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) is one of the largest telecom companies in the world. The company makes extensive use of drones to inspect critical infrastructure such as cell towers and cabling along bridges. Until now, this was mainly done with drones from China but fearing cyber espionage, the company is now developing its own open-source drones.
This video was posted on YouTube a few days ago, showing Sony’s Airpeak drone undergoing tests in a wind tunnel at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
In Japan, mini-drones weighing less than 200 grams have less strict rules than “normal” drones. But the Japanese government is going to reduce that lower limit to only 100 grams, now that more capable drones weighing just under 200 grams are appearing on the market, including a special version of the DJI Mavic Mini. That reports the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun.
The Japanese government is set to stop buying Chinese-made drones because of data security concerns, according to six people in government and the ruling party who are familiar with the matter.
A group of universities and startups in Japan have tested the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to recognize plastic waste in drone photos.