2018.11.22
Drones and AI to Support Residents in Mountainous Areas and Improve their Quality of Life
-- Social implementation of a new form of logistics and smart health checkups for elderly people in Masuda, Shimane Prefecture --
Drone Create Co., Ltd. (Masuda, Shimane Prefecture; President: Toru Matsumoto), which will open a drone school in Masuda-shi, Shimane in April 2019, is collaborating with four companies and organizations to conduct demonstration tests of goods transportation using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and artificial intelligence (AI) in Masuda, Shimane Prefecture. The test starts on November 26, 2018 to realize the improvement of the quality of life of residents in inter-mountainous areas especially elderly people.
The demonstration test is conducted by four drone-related companies/organizations (Drone Create Co., Ltd., Mitsuiwa Corporation, SEBEC Co., Ltd. and Japan Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Application Council) to arrange logistics of goods by drones, and NTT COMWARE CORPORATION (hereinafter NTT COMWARE) to provide their image recognition AI "Deeptector®". Masuda City and the Institute of Industrial Promotion Shimane Software R&D Center has also joined the scheme for field coordination and extraction of specific issues based on their expertise in the local environment.
The demonstration test aims for verification and exploring successful results to design a new scheme for a drone logistics system not only for delivery of goods but also for smart health checkups of locals who receive the goods.
1. Background of the Demonstration Test
Masuda City, the largest city in Shimane Prefecture in terms of area, has rich mountain forests covering the major area of the southern part of the city, but has faced serious issues in population decline and aging since the 1990s. Under such circumstances, cooking and home meal delivery services of nutritious food for elderly people and those who have difficulties in going out of their homes particularly in the inter-mountainous areas in the city have been provided. Furthermore, one of the major objectives of such services is to check the health condition of those who receive the service or goods since many of them are living alone or have physical disabilities. However, as there are significant issues in labor and costs concerning the current delivery service due to the coverage area for delivery services being very large and the efficiency in checking the delivery status, it is essential to design a new scheme to make the services sustainable regarding safety and economy.In order to solve such issues, the group of companies aims to create a hybrid logistics system using drones and AI to achieve both purposes: deliver goods in a safe, secure and economical manner and check "health conditions of the recipient of goods" through the demonstration test in the local area and verify the effects for improvement of the quality of life of the local residents.
2. Outline of the Test
In the demonstration test, the shipper loads an item into the drone and transports it to the recipient. The system to link the sensors including a camera on the drone and AI on the cloud controls or monitors the safe landing of the drone at the recipient location, confirmation of the receipt of goods, confirmation of the health condition of the recipient, and safe takeoff and return (Figure 1). Results of the AI-based analysis of the data concerning the receipt of goods and health status of the recipient are passed to the shipper as well as to public organizations and medical institutes as necessary.
[Figure 1. Outline of the demonstration test]
The verification is being conducted from November 26, 2018 (Mon) to March 31, 2019 (Sun), from preliminary experiments such as design of the flight route and safety check to be followed by actual flight and delivery of goods from December 17, 2018 (Figure 2).
[Figure 2. Demonstration test schedule]
The target area is planned to be expanded to areas throughout the entire city, including the Takatsugawa River area in Yasutomi-cho, Masuda-shi, Shimane Prefecture. The goods delivery test in the area around the Takatsugawa River area is conducted for routes for about 1.3km to deliver cooked meals from a factory (Masuda Cooking Foods, Yasutomi-cho) to the recipient location (M Land, the driving school, Yasutomi-cho) and to check the conditions of the recipient (e.g., status of receipt and health condition of the recipient) through visualization and notification of any abnormal conditions. The test aims to verify the system's feasibility by checking delivery status improvement including simplification of unloading the goods or prevention of goods shifting, as well as improvement of detecting the health conditions of the recipients.
Furthermore, from the viewpoint of improving the quality of life, it is currently planned to collaborate with regional supermarkets on ordinary delivery of living goods, with the aim of supporting so-called "weak shoppers" due to geographical restrictions, etc., in the general consumer group.
== Scopes of the demonstration test ==
(1) Safe flight/operation (acquisition of basic flight data)
To maintain the balance of the center of gravity of the drones in transporting cooked meals, and monitor shifting or breaking apart of foods arranged on a dish
(2) Confirmation of receipt (traceability design)
To establish a method how to log the flight and receipt of goods to ensure delivery of packages.
(3) Health check (visualization and utilization of vital signs)
To visualize health condition of the recipient (from certain ways, e.g., receipt status or temperature of the recipient using an infrared sensor) by a drone-mounted camera and AI and detect any abnormal conditions.
3. Roles of participating companies/organizations
(1) Drone Create Co., Ltd.Drone school for drone operation engineers and support for collaboration between business and local areas.
(2) Mitsuiwa Corporation
Overall system management, data analysis and maintenance support.
(3) SEBEC Co., Ltd.
Drone operation/coordination, flight data log.
(4) NTT COMWARE CORPORATION
Support for safe landing/takeoff/health status check using "Deeptector®", image recognition AI.
(5) Japan Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Application Council (JUAVAC)
Planning, supervision, operation support of this demonstration test.
[Supported by]
(1) Masuda City, Shimane Prefecture
Field test coordination in the city.
(2) The Institute of Industrial Promotion Shimane, Shimane IT Open-Innovation Center (ITOC)
Collaboration between industry, government and academia, and promotion of the finished system throughout the region.
** Endorsement
- Masuda City, Shimane Prefecture
Hiroshi Yamamoto the Mayor
Masuda City, the largest city in Shimane Prefecture in terms of areas, has numerous forests and faces serious issues including a decreasing population, a declining birthrate and aging. Under such circumstances, elderly people who reside in the inter-mountainous areas find it stressful going out of their homes even for shopping. Thus, the city expects that the demonstration test for drone-based goods transportation can contribute to improve the quality of life of people in the city and eventually provide a solution to social issues including a declining population and aging, labor shortages as well as the development of new industry in Masuda City. Masuda City will support this demonstration test for "improvement of civil services," "corporate development" and "creation of new employment".
- The Institute of Industrial Promotion Shimane, Shimane IT Open-Innovation Center (ITOC)
Hiroyuki Fujima, Director of the Center
In Shimane Prefecture, especially the Iwami area where population decline is a major issue, this demonstration test is a very meaningful effort toward solving various problems in the inter-mountainous area. In addition, utilization of drones has great potential including extended use for local industries and creation of employment for younger generations. ITOC fully backs this project undertaken by the companies involved, including Drone Create, and aims to fully support this project in the future.
** Company overview
* Drone Create
Company name: Drone Create Co., Ltd.
Representatives: Yoshiharu Ohata, Chairman and Representative Director
Toru Matsumoto, President and Representative Director
Address: 3330-1 Yasutake-cho, Masuda-shi, Shimane Prefecture
Capital: 10 million JPY
Date of establishment: October 4, 2018
Main business:
- Drone education
- Operation and development of drone-related businesses
* Mitsuiwa
Company name: Mitsuiwa Corporation
Representative: Reiji Ramoto, President and Representative Director
Address: 3-15-6 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Capital: 409 million JPY
Date of establishment: July 25, 1964
Number of employees: 788 (as of April 1, 2018)
Main business:
- Sales of IT equipment and sales of network/communication equipment
- Sales of electronic device products and various electronic devices
- Robot/automation, sales of equipment related to IoT and systems development
* SEBEC
Company name: SEBEC Co., Ltd.
Representative: Kazuyoshi Shodoshima, President and Representative Director
Address: 4-14 Kanda Sakuma-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Capital: 9 million JPY
Date of establishment: May 26, 2000
Number of employees: 23 (April 2018)
Main business:
- Promotion of small unmanned aerial vehicles (drones)/education
- Development, sales and leasing of waste edible oil regeneration fuel equipment (biodiesel plant)
- Development, sales and leasing of RECYAS, the equipment to recycle drainage water by cutting pavement
* NTT COMWARE
Company name: NTT COMWARE CORPORATION
Representative: Satoshi Kurishima, President and Representative Director
Address: NTT Shinagawa TWINS Annex Building, 1-9-1 Konan, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Capital: 20 billion JPY
Date of establishment: September 1, 1997
Number of employees: 6,315 (as of the end of March 2018)
Main business:
- Development, manufacture, operation and maintenance of telecommunication systems and related software or various devices and its services
- Sales and rental of telecommunication systems and related software, and various equipment
- Data processing services and data services
* Japan Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Application Council
Organization: Japan Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Application Council
Representative: Representative Director, Reiji Ramoto (President, Mitsuiwa Corporation)
Address: [Headquarters] 3-15-6 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
[Secretariat] 4-14 Kanda Sakuma-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Date of establishment: October 21, 2016
Main business:
Establishment of operational base aiming for social implementation of drones
- Improvement and supervision of educational environment that can guarantee safe navigation and advanced skills
- Drone operation technology certification and promotion support
- Data utilization technology support projects for data collected by drones, etc.
* "Deeptector" is a registered trademark of NTT COMWARE CORPORATION.
* Other names of organizations, companies and products are registered trademarks of each organization or company.
