NEC’s passenger drone takes a short test flight in Japan
Japan is eager to become a leader in the passenger drone industry.
NEC Corp
nudged the nation a step closer to that goal Monday with a demo of a people-carrying quadcopter, which stayed in the air for about a minute.
The company operated the flight inside a safety cage at a test facility in Abiko, a Tokyo suburb.
The battery-powered drone
didn’t actually have a passenger inside as it rose to a height of about 10 feet for a few moments before returning to the ground.
It was the first demo of such a vehicle by a major Japanese corporation, according to Bloomberg.
Its partner Cartivator aims to start mass production in 2026.
Kouji Okada,
who is among the project leads at NEC, told Bloomberg. “We are positioning ourselves as an enabler for air mobility, providing location data and building communications infrastructure for flying cars.”
Under Japan’s infrastructure plan,
deliveries made by such drones are scheduled to start by 2023 or so.
https://www.engadget.com/2019/08/05/japan-passenger-drone-nec/