World's first direct engine drive multicopter drone "AZ-500" demo flight (October 26, at the mouth of Tenryugawa, Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture)
The other is the proposal of a new concept "SYNC WORLD" that aims to build a digital space in which AI-equipped robots, not just drones, can move in synchronization with the real world in real time. It was devised by Mr. Taishi and has been patented. It seems to be a slightly different concept from the digital twin that is often heard in the context of smartening.
Aizawa High Pressure Concrete is, as the name suggests, a concrete company. Why are you developing a drone driven directly by the engine? That's because "I wanted such a drone, but it wasn't in the world."
Equipped with "self-healing concrete" that the company originally developed to repair cracks with the power of microorganisms, it can be sprayed directly onto the concrete wall, and "3D printing of concrete" that is currently being performed with the arm mounted on the vehicle. It is clear that we want to achieve it with a drone, such as increasing the degree of freedom by making it possible to do it from the sky.
The first to develop was a hybrid powered system drone. We have jointly developed a large-scale, application-specific aircraft that uses an engine to generate electricity to drive a motor, in collaboration with Top Flight Technologies, a MIT-based tech venture in the United States. At the 2020 Japan Drone Exhibition, the aircraft was shown in a big way.
At that time, it was almost completed, so the powerful "payload 10 kg, flight time 1 hour" attracted attention, but control to suppress engine vibration was the final major issue. It was Mr. Kunio Arase, who had been involved in the engine development of Suzuki Hayabusa, who met when it became clear that no further improvement could be expected.
Mr. Taishi: When I was feeling the limits of hybrids, as energy was lost due to storage, and electricity did not produce much power, I heard from Mr. Arase about the concept of a "flying engine." We also told them what we wanted to do, such as spraying self-healing concrete and 3D printing of concrete materials, and although we had no idea until then, we decided to develop a drone directly driven by the engine from scratch.
Mr. Taishi, who had never been involved in drones at work until then, joined Aizawa at the timing of this policy change. As soon as he became the director of the RDM Center Preparation Office of Aizawa High Pressure Concrete and the executive officer and vice president of Aizawa Technical Research Institute, he not only developed the aircraft, but also asked "What kind of world is the most desirable for industrial drones?" It is said that he started thinking from 0 again.
Mr. Taishi: In order to properly operate and manage industrial drones, I thought it would be necessary to develop a set to create a system to manage the entire space digitally. With the engine drone as one of the triggers, the things to think about, such as xR, blockchain, and digital city planning, have expanded steadily, and it's really fun now.
It's been talked about really developing an engine drone, but we will update the space where the drone flies at the same time to create a new system. I think the reason why this trend was born in the past year is that Mr. Taishi had a core skill in "digital and architecture".
Since he was a student at Tokyo University of Science, he learned from the instructors from Columbia University's GSAPP, who have been at the forefront of architecture, and was particularly influenced by Seiichi Saito of Rhizomatiks, who was one of the instructors. I received it. In his laboratory, it was natural for him to join TeamLab, which focused on "digital and architecture" with the main theme of projection mapping, which brings an infinite expanse to architecture, and also took up the research theme.
Taishi: I have been with TeamLab Architects for about 5 years. What I was doing was basically a large-scale underwater project that wasn't known to the world yet, and I was working with a client to find something interesting, like 0 or 100. Just. I was doing such a job of designing a building from scratch, including the design of the space as an image, thinking about how to express the work spatially and the most impressed by the customer.
TeamLab's work has no perspective at all. Establishing an expression method called "super-subjective space", like a Japanese picture scroll, where you can see the garden, mountains, and sky as a flat layer, like a so-called borrowed landscape, where the pictures continue in a plane forever. It is said that the work of creating a spatial experience from scratch in TeamLab, which has become an absolute one-of-a-kind, was very fun and a lot of learning.
However, to put it the other way around, it is not possible to take on challenges that deviate from the super-subjective space. At that time, when he heard about the various efforts of the Aizawa Group in the family business, he felt that it was very exciting and interesting. He said that he thought about "the importance of choosing a job based on excitement".
Taishi: I was confident that I had the skills to be second to none when it came to "digital and architecture," which I had been doing at university and TeamLab for about 10 years. So, even if I went to another industry, I just thought about how to utilize that core skill.
More important than that is whether it seems interesting or exciting. Because people can't be serious about things they can't get excited about. In order to make things with the belief that you want to change the world with what you make, whether it's a drone or anything, I think it's necessary to first find something that you can be seriously excited about.
Now, Mr. Taishi has also set up a first-class architect office called ADACC in the Aizawa group, using MR (Mixed Reality) and attempts that are an extension of the past, such as how to expand the real space by digital utilization. We are also starting new initiatives such as space design.
For Mr. Taishi, who has long been oriented toward such work as creating a spatial experience from scratch, it was natural for him to quickly focus on "what kind of world should industrial drones be developed in?" Probably. Mr. Taishi points out that drones and "city planning" are inseparable from each other.
Mr. Taishi: I'm seriously thinking about how the city will be managed together with digital technology so that industrial drones can really fly. An engine drone is a great deliverable by itself, but we need to design how the aircraft actually moves in the city and how to deliver the value obtained by flying the drone to the world.
We are designing a system for operating drones from the perspective of city planning, rather than simply digitizing the real world like the smart cities that have been talked about so far. We are also developing a service that predicts and detects disasters based on that.
On August 24, 2021, Aizawa High Pressure Concrete signed a "Basic Agreement on Factory Location" with Namie Town, Fukushima Prefecture. The Fukushima RDM Center, which has the three functions of research, development, and manufacturing, was constructed in the South Industrial Complex in Namie-cho, Fukushima Prefecture, and is located here at the research institute of the Aizawa Group. We are planning to set up a major base of Aizawa Institute of Technology and collaborate with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Delft University of Technology.
The Fukushima RDM Center will create new products and business models in six R & D areas, one of which is the utilization of engine drones in the "disaster prevention support / infrastructure maintenance field".
In the event of a disaster such as a large-scale heavy rain or tsunami, the river width is measured in real time using satellite data, the sky above the coastline is photographed for a long time with an engine drone and broadcast in real time, and these data are integrated with digital data of the city. We aim to establish a solution that raises the resolution of disaster prevention, such as simulating how water overflows when the embankment breaks. We are also planning to release an application that can directly issue "evacuation alerts" to individuals by utilizing the analysis results.
Mr. Taishi: The plan is to implement The Guardian, a river tsunami disaster prevention support app for individuals, in society under a partnership agreement with Namie Town. I think that it may be difficult to judge whether the conventional wide-area disaster prediction is at the level where you really have to evacuate, but this app realizes pinpoint prediction detection for individuals. I really want to create a service that really saves people's lives by delivering individually optimized information to individual users that your location is like this and how many hours later it will be.
The engine drone "AZ-500" is a very powerful aircraft with a weight of 100 kg, a payload of less than 50 kg, and a continuous navigation time of 5 hours or more without using a payload. That is why it is useful for continuous monitoring. What is more remarkable is that the aircraft is positioned as "the base aircraft for industrial drones, which is premised on autonomous navigation." And the basis of autonomous navigation is a new concept called "SYNC WORLD" devised by Mr. Taishi.
"SYNC WORLD" means a synchronized world. Mr. Taishi thinks, "Digital twins that digitize the real world in exactly the same way do not have much synchronization, and it is difficult for drones and robots to move autonomously."
Mr. Taishi: SYNCWORLD is not a famous story yet, but it is a concept that I am talking about (laughs), but I have registered the trademark properly. The point is that there are not only digital twins but also physical twins. AI and robots only perceive the real world using some kind of sensor, so for them, the digital world is the main thing, and the real world we are in is "the other side".
However, since drones and robots are moving according to the digital world where AI works, I think it would be good for them to have physical twins, just as there are digital twins from our point of view. And by creating a world in which the two are synchronized in real time, we believe that humans and machines can coexist in real time.
Space recognition of AI-equipped drone and concept exhibition of autonomous navigation "Sync World"
The concept was unveiled at the Japan Drone Exhibition in June 2021. When you move the model building, the digital AI can recognize the physical data of the building and perceive the real world in real time in the digital world, so the drone can autonomously avoid the building and fly. ..
In order to realize "SYNC WORLD", the strategy that Mr. Taishi thinks is a simple one that manages "only" location information on the blockchain. On the contrary, it does not share any other information.
Mr. Taishi: It's a system that can't manage anything other than location information, so it would be extremely inconvenient, but I think that limiting it in this way is the key to its widespread use. If you only have information about where you are, no matter what kind of interest you have in any industry, sharing it will not have any business impact. In addition, real-time sharing of location information across industries is indispensable for autonomous navigation. We are planning to develop an extremely low-dimensional system that only manages location information, implement it in Namie Town first, and open it up so that anyone can use it.
Under the agreement with Namie Town, the Guardian, a river tsunami disaster prevention support app for individuals, is scheduled to be implemented by 2024. In other words, before the Osaka Expo, you can see the world embodied by "SYNCWORLD", and in the future, not only drones but also autonomously moving cars and robots will all be connected to the "SYNCWORLD" system. Aim for a world where location information can be shared.
By the way, Aizawa High Pressure Concrete is said to "strictly" adhere to the original words, "Do not do anything other than concrete." At first glance, both engine drones and SYNC WORLD seem to be far from concrete, but if "concrete × ○○" increases the added value of concrete and increases demand, it is the idea that it is all related to concrete. yes.
Taishi: The new technology is, after all, a combination of something that already exists. I grew up hearing from my father that one of them is concrete, so I don't have to think about it and it's easy.
Mr. Taishi says that challenging innovation with "concrete x something" was usually a conversation at home and a conversation between father and son. Based on the fact that he ran with his own interests at the university and TeamLab, he said, "I am trying to challenge myself where Aizawa could not challenge until now." The exchange of opinions on new businesses between father and son seems to be very smooth.
Mr. Taishi: Since we are a concrete company, it is unlikely that the operating profit margin will suddenly increase sharply in the civil engineering industry, but I would like to create a system that makes the company as a whole more profitable in various ways related to concrete. However, I think that it is best for everyone to have fun and enjoy their work, so I have to think more about the structure of the company itself.
Also, there is a lot to be understood from seeing Mr. Arase's work, which has built up the engine of a motorcycle from scratch, up close. Manufacturing in Japan is very difficult, but it's like a treasure. I would like to create a new system that can take care of this and lead to something.
My main job is an architect, but I'm doing too many things at the same time, and it's difficult to explain who I am (laughs). I think it's okay to be untied. It's the same with homes and towns, and working styles are the most basic part of life. I want to be an architect who proposes a new lifestyle that essentially tackles that.
I am very much looking forward to seeing what kind of stone will be thrown into the world of manufacturing, including drone development, while Mr. Taishi, who continues to take on new challenges based on the relationship of trust between father and son, will get hints for organizational development from skilled engineers.