Preferred Networks and ACSL announced on September 10, 2026, that their joint project to develop autonomous drone control technologies had entered a phase aimed at enabling drones to make operational decisions using artificial intelligence. The project is part of the K Program of Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), and is scheduled to be carried out during fiscal years 2025 through 2027.
What Is Changing in the Project?
The work focuses on developing technologies that enable a drone to analyze its surrounding environment and make decisions without relying entirely on a human operator. The core elements include perception, planning, responding to environmental changes, and technologies for recognizing and tracking objects.
According to the project, these capabilities are intended to address six categories of drone missions in hazardous environments: search, rescue, monitoring, reconnaissance, and communications. Preferred Networks says the project seeks to develop technologies capable of handling all of these categories while enabling autonomous operation under a variety of conditions.
The Role of Artificial Intelligence
Preferred Networks uses artificial intelligence technologies to reconstruct the operating environment, improve object recognition, and make appropriate decisions according to changing conditions. The goal is to automate certain aspects of drone design and operation that traditionally depended on an operator’s expertise, enabling more complex operations at sites where direct human intervention is difficult or dangerous.
This does not mean that the source announces comprehensive commercial operation or full autonomy for drones under all conditions; rather, it describes the project’s transition to a phase for developing specific technologies and capabilities within a funded research program.
Hardware and Software Updates
ACSL is updating the SOTEN drone to support autonomous operation, including improvements related to durability and resistance to environmental factors. The company aims to expand the drone’s use at sites requiring information gathering or disaster response.
ACSL is also collaborating with FIXSTARS to develop an open software package that will help expand the drone’s capabilities. According to the article, the partnership includes providing technologies such as object recognition and making an application development environment available, with a focus on increasing the usability of SOTEN in various scenarios.
Why Does This News Matter?
The project’s technological value is not limited to adding an autonomous piloting function; it lies in attempting to transform the drone from a platform that executes specified commands into a system capable of interpreting its environment and selecting an appropriate response. This matters to the search and rescue, monitoring, and infrastructure sectors, where the speed of decision-making and action in hazardous areas may be decisive.
However, the source does not provide quantitative performance results or a schedule for the commercial availability of these capabilities, nor does it clarify the limits of autonomous operation or the mechanisms for verifying decisions under critical conditions. Therefore, the current outputs remain within the scope of development and research until field-test results or more detailed operating specifications are presented.