Technology:
Chiyoda Corporation, one of Japan’s leading engineering
companies, will use an unmanned helicopter to manage materials for plant construction
within the year. Plant construction usually takes 3-4 years, and nearly one million
kinds of materials are stored in a vast material storing site. A large-scale
construction project usually needs 300-350 staffs to manage materials. Chiyoda
will introduce an unmanned helicopter loaded with the GPS function in the
construction sites in the Southeast Asia and the Middle East within the year.
The helicopter in which the flight route is input
beforehand will reads IC tags put on stored materials while it flies above 5-10
meters above the ground and takes photos to allow the operator to know the
exact location of the material he is after. The helicopter to be introduced is
made by enRoute that is a maker of radio-controlled products. It is priced about
750,000 yen a unit. The tag to be used in the material management is made of
plastic and 0.8 mm thick, 100 mm long. It costs merely 50 yen apiece. Currently,
a large number of staffs are required to manage materials in a storing site,
and checking can be made several times a year. Chiyoda reckons that the unmanned
helicopter can reduce the labor cost involved in materials management to one
third.
Spraying pesticide over paddy fields
using an unmanned helicopter
Demonstration flight of an all-purpose
unmanned helicopter
unmanned helicopter
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