Swift Engineering has successfully demonstrated the first fully autonomous flight of its Swift020 vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAS in Kobe, Japan, the company announced on 1 August.
The system’s X-blade technology allows it to take off and land vertically and transition to fixed-wing forward flight without additional launch and recovery equipment.
The Swift020 UAS is a family of systems designed to support linear infrastructure, oil and gas, maritime, emergency services, delivery, agriculture, scientific research, surveillance and security markets.
Andrew Streett, VP of technology and chief scientist at Swift Engineering, said: ‘This was a collaboration with the Osaka Aviation Bureau, the city and port of Kobe, which cumulated in the Swift020 flying over a ‘densely inhabited district’ a standard used in Japan to describe an area of 4,000 people per 1sq km. The teamwork between multiple agencies was key to the success of this demonstration.
‘This is a preemptive success before the release of the regulations for drone use in Japan.’
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