The public and private sectors are accelerating efforts to use drones to increase efficiency in the shipping industry.
The government recently submitted a bill to the Diet to revise the Civil Aeronautics Law, mainly to expand the range in which small unmanned aircraft can operate.
The goal is to allow, possibly by fiscal 2022, drones that cannot be visually confirmed by the operator to fly in populated areas. Doing so is currently prohibited by law.
Presently, drones are mainly used for aerial photography to assess situations in disaster-hit areas and for spraying agrichemicals.
If the revised bill passes, flying drones in populated areas under conditions in which the operator cannot visually confirm the aircraft's status will be allowed on condition that the pilot has a special license and the aircraft is certified by the government as being safe.
The range of drone usage would be drastically expanded if the bill is approved.
Drones are increasingly expected to be used to distribute commodities in such places as remote islands and sparsely inhabited areas. Anticipating this development, companies and universities have been rapidly building and testing drones.
Behind such moves are the increasingly graying of the nation's population and a shortage of delivery personnel.
In December last year, All Nippon Airways (ANA) and various partners, including Seven-Eleven Japan Co., conducted a demonstration of transporting daily necessities and medical products from a site in Fukuoka to Nokonoshima island in the city's Nishi Ward.
Island residents ordered products via smartphones, and a drone delivered the goods in 30 minutes, at the quickest.
Map service company Zenrin Co. is exploring ways to provide various services in sparsely populated areas utilizing drones.
The company is looking beyond shipping food and daily necessities and examining ways to deliver prescription medications in collaboration with remote medical treatment systems.
Zenrin plans to use shuttered schools as stopovers for drones traveling long distances.
Keio University conducted an experiment in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, to utilize drones to help elderly mikan farmers. Mikan trees are often grown on slopes so steep that tractors cannot be used. By transporting mikan with a drone to a consolidation site, the research team succeeded in greatly reducing the work time.
However, there are significant hurdles to clear in realizing widespread drone delivery, including improving aircraft performance and clarifying responsibility when accidents occur.
"It's difficult to immediately use drones for flying parcel delivery," a senior Cabinet Secretariat official said.
The government wants to overcome such impediments quickly through debate among experts.
But beyond legislative actions and technological advancements related the drones, the government's goal of realizing extensive use of the aircraft is drawing near.
There is fierce competition around the world to develop drones.
The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry set up on April 1 a new section exclusively devoted to next-generation aerial mobility.
"Drones [that can reduce physical contact among people] have so much potential, not only for transport, but also from the viewpoint of measures to avoid infection," a ministry official said.
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