Observation and measurement in disaster areas using industrial use unmanned helicopters

Yamaha Motor's RMAX industrial use unmanned helicopter is used for crop dusting rice paddies and there are presently more than 2,500 unmanned helicopters being used in Japan's agriculture industry. Autonomous flight control type unmanned helicopters based on the agricultural use RMAX ones have been developed and were used for observation over Hokkaido's Mt. Usu volcano during its 2000 eruption. Since then, development has continued to enable improved observation and measurement in disaster areas using “Autonomous Flight Type RMAX G1”. In this paper we introduce the operational technology developed for observation and measurement with this model, particularly for observation activities related to erupting volcanoes. Insights gained from these activities are summarized. We also introduce a new unmanned helicopter model, “FAZER”, which is expected to enjoy a wide usage range due to its improved loading capacity compared with the conventional RMAX model.