Wedoany.com Report, On March 17, 2026, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) announced that, in collaboration with U.S. company Shield AI and utilizing the Hivemind Enterprise artificial intelligence development environment, it has successfully completed a flight demonstration of drone mission autonomy technology. The entire development process, including AI system construction, drone integration, and actual flight testing, took only eight weeks.

In previous R&D efforts, MHI needed to invest significant resources to establish and maintain an internal environment based on multiple open-source products for coding, AI training, simulation evaluation, and hardware-in-the-loop testing. By adopting the Hivemind Enterprise platform for this project, the team was able to focus more on developing the core mission autonomy technology, significantly improving efficiency.

This mission autonomy development project was launched in September 2025. Flight demonstrations were conducted on November 7 at the test site in Inashiki District, Ibaraki Prefecture, and on December 18 at the test site in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture. After completing training, simulation, and testing, the AI system was installed on an ARMD drone and successfully executed autonomous flight missions.

Mission autonomy is regarded as a key technology shaping Japan's drone operational capabilities, and MHI emphasizes the importance of domestic production. Based on the rapid progress in developing a Japan-made mission autonomy system, MHI and Shield AI will strengthen their collaboration to further accelerate the development of related technologies.

By applying the latest AI technologies, MHI is committed to utilizing drones to address diverse challenges and contribute to realizing a safer and more reliable social environment.