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Japan: Osaka Allocates Grants for eVTOL Development

The Japan Osa­ka Pre­fec­tur­al Gov­ern­ment has allo­cat­ed grants to eight domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al con­sor­tiums to assist its devel­op­ment of the eVTOL indus­try ahead of the 2025 World Expo, reports akihabaranews.com. To be held on the man­made island of Yumeshi­ma in Osa­ka Bay, there are just 941 days remain­ing until the Expo opens.

The grant appli­ca­tion peri­od ran from June 30th to July 29th. The results were announced last week (Sep­tem­ber 7th). The eight suc­cess­ful con­sor­tiums will share a pool of USD210,000 in fund­ing from the pre­fec­tur­al gov­ern­ment, though the pre­cise divi­sion of this mon­ey has not been revealed. There were a total of fif­teen dif­fer­ent appli­cants of which sev­en were unsuc­cess­ful.

The con­sor­tia who received grants are as fol­lows:

Mit­sui: Man­dat­ed to cre­ate a plat­form for an air mobil­i­ty inte­grat­ed oper­a­tions man­age­ment sys­tem. This includes assis­tance in the cre­ation of an Osa­ka Kan­sai Expo Flight Coor­di­na­tion Cen­ter, as well as stud­ies and prac­ti­cal exper­i­ments aim­ing to pro­vide a safe envi­ron­ment for eVTOL flights, both under nor­mal con­di­tions and in emer­gen­cies. Oth­er mem­bers of this con­sor­tium are Japan Aero­space Explo­ration Agency (JAXA), JR West Inno­va­tions, Aero Asahi, Ogawa Air, and Ter­ra Drone.

Air­bus: Autho­rised to ver­i­fy opti­mal flight routes, includ­ing a con­sid­er­a­tion of nec­es­sary equip­ment. Ini­tial­ly, tests will be con­duct­ed via auto­mat­ed heli­copters. The routes to be ver­i­fied include Kan­sai Inter­na­tion­al Air­port to cen­tral Osa­ka, Kobe Air­port to Kan­sai Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, and Awa­ji Island to cen­tral Osa­ka. The oth­er mem­ber of this con­sor­tium is Hirata­gakuen.

Sum­it­o­mo: Assigned to con­duct eVTOL flight sim­u­la­tions using an unmanned air­craft con­trol sys­tem. This project includes the 3D visu­al­iza­tion of flight routes to iden­ti­fy poten­tial prob­lems in oper­a­tions. Flight sim­u­la­tions will involve three poten­tial routes: Yumeshi­ma Excur­sion; Kan­sai Inter­na­tion­al Air­port to Yumeshi­ma; and Yumeshi­ma to Ume­da (a cen­tral Osa­ka com­mer­cial dis­trict). The oth­er mem­bers of this con­sor­tium are Japan Air­lines (JAL) and OneSky Sys­tems.

Orix: Man­dat­ed to con­duct a fea­si­bil­i­ty study for plac­ing ver­ti­ports with­in cen­tral Osa­ka, includ­ing on rooftops. The sur­vey will include an exam­i­na­tion of wind con­di­tions and the costs for con­struc­tion and main­te­nance. Oth­er mem­bers of this con­sor­tium are Mit­subishi Elec­tric Cor­po­ra­tion, Kan­sai Elec­tric Pow­er Com­pa­ny (KEPCO), Aero Facil­i­ty and All Nip­pon Air­ways (ANA).

Kane­mat­su: Autho­rised to inves­ti­gate can­di­date sites for ver­ti­ports in Osa­ka Pre­fec­ture. This inves­ti­ga­tion intends to find the opti­mal sites for ver­ti­ports that will ser­vice the 2025 Expo. This project aims to estab­lish a ver­ti­port man­age­ment sys­tem that will pos­sess long-term busi­ness via­bil­i­ty. Oth­er mem­bers of this con­sor­tium are Sky­ports, Nip­pon Koei and Chuo Fukken Con­sul­tants.

Kane­mat­su and Sky­ports to Col­lab­o­rate (Pic: Sky­ports)

Marubeni: Assigned to con­duct exper­i­ments aimed at enhanc­ing pub­lic accep­tance of eVTOLs, and also exam­in­ing the busi­ness case for air taxi ser­vices. This includes the pro­vi­sion of a heli­copter trans­porta­tion expe­ri­ence to some mem­bers of the pub­lic at the esti­mat­ed tick­et price of future eVTOL ser­vices on routes con­nect­ing Osa­ka and Wakaya­ma pre­fec­tures. A lat­er exper­i­ment will use the Hexa eVTOL devel­oped by Lift Air­craft. Oth­er mem­bers of this con­sor­tium are Chodai, Nankai Elec­tric Rail­way, Tokio Marine and Nichi­do Fire Insur­ance, Ver­ti­cal Aero­space Group, Som­po Japan Insur­ance and Lift Air­craft.

Voloc­i­ty to be on Dis­play (Pic: Volo­copter)

Sky­Drive: Man­dat­ed to con­duct lec­tures and sur­veys relat­ed to increas­ing social accep­tance of the eVTOL indus­try. In the lec­ture series to be held at var­i­ous loca­tions around Osa­ka Pre­fec­ture, this con­sor­tium will present atten­dees with pre­sen­ta­tions on the theme of “a future with fly­ing cars.” Oth­er mem­bers of the con­sor­tium are Obayashi Cor­po­ra­tion, Kan­sai Elec­tric Pow­er Com­pa­ny (KEPCO), Kin­tet­su Group, Tokio Marine and Nichi­do Fire Insur­ance.

Volo­copter: Autho­rised to organ­ise an exhi­bi­tion aimed at increas­ing pub­lic accep­tance of the eVTOL indus­try. Volo­copter is plan­ning to hold an event ear­ly next year in Osa­ka to dis­play a full-scale mod­el of its VoloC­i­ty air­craft and to con­duct class­es on urban air mobil­i­ty for ele­men­tary and junior high schools. Oth­er mem­bers of this con­sor­tium are Japan Air­lines (JAL), Mit­sui, Mit­sui Bus­san Aero­space and Cen­tu­ry Tokyo Leas­ing Cor­po­ra­tion.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.expo2025.or.jp/en/

(News Source: https://akihabaranews.com)

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