*This is a translation of the original Japanese press release.
Tokyo, Japan – June 10, 2026 – SENSYN ROBOTICS, Inc. and Kyushu Railway Company are jointly developing and validating autonomous flight drone technology tailored for railway track environments. This initiative aims to enhance safety and advance future operations in the maintenance and management of railway facilities.
In this initiative, to accommodate the diverse and unique environmental conditions of railways, the companies have developed and verified flight control technology that combines multiple autonomous flight modes, enabling a single drone to fly continuously within railway track environments. Moving forward, both companies will continue technical development and operational validation toward practical application, striving to save labor and advance the efficiency of railway infrastructure maintenance.
1. Overview of the Initiative
Railway track environments contain a continuous succession of sections with vastly different environmental conditions. These include not only areas where GNSS*1 signals required for autonomous flight can be stably acquired, but also tunnels, areas with dense vegetation, and level crossings. To address these variations, the companies developed and verified the following three types of autonomous flight modes:
| Flight Mode | GNSS Mode | Rail Tracking Mode | Tunnel Mode |
| Altitude | 25 m | 2 m | 2 m |
| Speed | 6 m/s | 2 m/s | 1 m/s |
| Features |
• High-speed, high-altitude wide-area survey. • Requires flight path configuration in advance. • Automatic ascent and descent at designated points. |
• Low-speed, low-altitude rail tracking. • No flight path configuration required. • Operates in non-GNSS environments. • Inspection from a driver's perspective. |
• Low-speed, low-altitude tunnel flight. • No flight path configuration required. • Stable flight in non-GNSS spaces. • Auto mode switching via structure recognition. |
| Applied Technology |
• LiDAR*2 (Point cloud acquisition) • GNSS positioning |
• LiDAR (Point cloud acquisition) • AI image recognition |
• LiDAR (Point cloud acquisition)
|
| Safety Features |
• Obstacle avoidance & autonomous descent |
• Obstacle avoidance & autonomous navigation |
Three Flight Modes for Autonomous Railway Track Flight
*1 GNSS : Global Navigation Satellite System. A system that measures the current location on Earth using radio waves from artificial satellites (such as GPS).
*2 LiDAR: Light Detection and Ranging. A technology that emits laser light to measure the distance and shape of target objects as 3D "point cloud data."
By automatically switching between these flight modes depending on the situation, the companies successfully
confirmed that a single drone can perform continuous, end-to-end autonomous flight along the tracks.
2. Significance of This Initiative
This technology has the potential to serve as a new method for supplementing on-site situational awareness in railway facility maintenance and management. It is expected to be utilized for safety inspections during abnormal weather events and for remote autonomous inspections of railway structures.
3. Future Outlook
Through this initiative, the companies will proceed with continuous technical development and demonstration testing, while also studying institutional, operational, and safety aspects. Furthermore, as a technology that contributes to the efficiency and advancement of overall railway infrastructure maintenance, we aim to build a sustainable development and operational framework, keeping in mind collaboration and partnerships with railway operators and related companies.
Field verification conducted on the Ibusuki Makurazaki Line
About SENSYN ROBOTICS
SENSYN ROBOTICS is a leading social infrastructure DX company with the mission of "evolving the 'natural' in society." We use the power of AI and data to solve the problems faced by society and businesses.
We solve issues such as labor shortages, safety risks, and rising costs that exist in the social and industrial infrastructure that supports Japan and the world with software solutions for data utilization that anyone can handle, making full use of the latest technologies, including AI.
Utilizing the know-how gained from a wealth of projects and our proprietary software development platform "SENSYN CORE," we provide comprehensive support from consulting to scenario formulation, business feasibility evaluation, technology and system development, and implementation in actual operations. We will help realize a sustainable future by solving social issues such as inspections of aging infrastructures, a declining workforce due to the falling birthrate and aging population, and increasingly severe disasters.
Head Office：4F Sumitomo Fudosan Oimachiekimae Building 1-28-1 Oi, Shinagawa-City, Tokyo Japan
Established：October, 2015
CEO：Takuya Kitamura
https://www.sensyn-robotics.com/en