JR East Holds Drone Operation Championship

Old & New video

By Ryuzo Suzuki / Yomiuri Shimbun Senior Photographer

15:31 JST, June 22, 2025

The Drone DX Championship, a competition for industrial drone users vying for technical mastery of drone operation in narrow spaces, was held for the first time at Takanawa Gateway City, a large complex directly connected to Takanawa Gateway Station on the JR Yamanote Line in Minato Ward, Tokyo, from June 7 to 8.

The station, which opened in 2020, and the surrounding area, where a town opening event was held this year, are among the largest redevelopment areas in central Tokyo and designated by East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) as “experimental sites to create enriching lives for the next 100 years.” The championship was organized by JR East with the aim of allowing people to imagine future infrastructural management, while seeking to improve drone operation technology and safety. Many of the company’s departments have introduced drones in their work.

The inter-department tournament between four teams from JR East was held on June 7; the inter-company tournament between eight teams from companies collaborating with JR East, such as a security firm and an electric power company, took place on June 8.

The drones in the races are of the same model used to search inside a sewage pipe when a road collapsed in Yashio, Saitama Prefecture. Produced domestically, the drones measure about 20 square centimeters and are particularly useful in narrow and small spaces.

The specially prepared racecourse was a circuit of about 50 meters. Participants navigated drones remotely by hand, relying only on images sent from the drones to clear the tricky challenging sections modeled after train station facilities, such as attics, underfloor spaces and platforms, before crossing the finishing line at a real automatic ticket gate. The win was not counted unless the drone tapped the automatic ticket gate with a Suica IC travel card attached to its body.

The competition was a single-elimination tournament. Each team of three took turns racing the course, with total team time as the deciding factor for the winner. If the drone’s camera successfully read a two-dimensional code on the course, it was given credit for a certain amount of time.

The first champion of the inter-department tournament on June 7 was E-Wings, an electrical facility management department team; for the inter-company tournament on June 8, the winner was KDDI Smart Drone.

“Drones will greatly change how we conduct facility maintenance. We will continue holding this event at this station, which was constructed with a 100-year vision,” JR East President Yoichi Kise said at the award ceremony on June 8.