Japan’s drone sector is thinking big, building bigger and deploying at scale. In Part 1 of this series, I introduced four Japanese companies at the Japan Drone and AAM Expo 2026 doing remarkable things with large unmanned aircraft. This is Part 2 of 2 which features a ship-launched VTOL built for Japan’s maritime frontier, a gasoline-powered heavy-lifter engineered from the ground up, a seventh-generation agricultural and logistics workhorse from Taiwan targeting the Japanese market and Japan’s first hydrogen-powered drone company with a fully commercialized platform already in the air.
Robo-DEX: Japan’s First Hydrogen Drone Company Takes Flight
Daisuke Kaio, the CEO of Robo-DEX, said his company is the first in Japan to develop and commercialize hydrogen-powered drones. The motivation, he explained, is straightforward. Electric batteries simply do not give industrial drone operators the flight time they need to make unmanned systems genuinely useful across social and industrial sectors. Hydrogen does.
Robo-DEX’s flagship commercialized platform is the Aegis 1, a large drone powered by a high-pressure hydrogen tank that achieves close to two hours of flight time. It carries a payload of 5 to 10 kilograms and targets surveillance, patrol, disaster response, and infrastructure maintenance missions, all applications where extended loiter time is not a preference but a requirement. The Aegis 1 is already on the market and available now.
Robo-DEX also displayed a second platform at the expo, a tricopter with dual motors designed specifically for power line inspection. That aircraft is not yet commercialized but is expected to reach market next year, and Daisuke described it as a major reason the company came to the show. Crucially, Robo-DEX addresses the question every hydrogen platform inevitably faces by supplying the full ecosystem: the drone, the hydrogen generator, and the compressor to fuel the high-pressure tank.
Nihon Unmanned Aircraft Manufacturing: Japan’s Proven Offshore VTOL Aircraft Developer
Takashi Yoshida from NUAM, short for Nihon Unmanned Aircraft Manufacturing Co., Ltd., had a drone at the expo that carried a name as bold as its capabilities: the Hisho, meaning “flight” or “soaring flight.” NUAM describes itself as Japan’s only aircraft with extensive proven operational experience over distant offshore waters, including the Antarctic Ocean, and the Hisho’s specifications back that claim up.
The Hisho measures 1.85 meters in length, spans 3.1 meters wide, stands 0.8 meters tall, and weighs in at 29 kilograms. It carries a payload of 3 to 8 kilograms, achieves a flight endurance of 90 minutes on its current electric motor configuration, and has set a Japanese record for electric-powered VTOL range at 104 kilometers. A gasoline-powered variant extends endurance to three hours. The aircraft requires only a 5-by-5-meter takeoff and landing space and a minimum crew of two, and NUAM notes it can be transported in a single van.
The Hisho inherits its design lineage from an earlier platform called the ASUKA, which NUAM co-developed with the Institute of Cetacean Research. It accumulated over 300 successful shipboard takeoffs and landings, including operations in the Antarctic Ocean. That proven maritime pedigree makes the Hisho relevant to a wide mission set from wide-area sea monitoring and detection of suspicious vessels to illegal fishing, marine research, offshore infrastructure inspection and disaster response. NUAM also sees the platform as relevant to Japan’s growing interest in unmanned systems for maritime security and coastal defense, including government initiatives related to multi-layered defense systems using unmanned assets.
Ishikawa Energy Research: Vibration-Free Gasoline Power for Heavy Cargo
Minoru Fukushima, General Manager of the Business Planning Division at Ishikawa Energy Research (IER), stood beside some of the physically largest aircraft on the expo floor. The company is an engineering-focused firm of approximately 40 people, and it does something most drone manufacturers do not: it designs and builds its own gasoline engines. That engine expertise sits at the heart of everything Ishikawa brings to market.
The flagship prototype in development targets heavy payload and long-endurance logistics missions. Minoru confirmed that test flights have already achieved a 50-kilogram payload at 90 minutes of flight time, and the aircraft can sustain two to three hours aloft when unloaded.
The primary use case Minoru described is mountain logistics, delivering heavy construction materials, large components, or industrial goods to terrain that trucks simply cannot reach. He also pointed to construction sites and time-sensitive material transfers between locations as target applications. The company expects to bring this larger model to market in roughly two to three years.
In the meantime, IER is preparing to launch a smaller hybrid drone in the near term. This platform uses a compact gasoline engine to generate onboard electric power, enabling flight times three to four times longer than comparable all-electric drones while carrying payloads up to five kilograms. The hybrid model also targets wide area investigation, disaster response, and energy infrastructure inspection. Minoru was direct about where the market stands: “We believe this will be growing quickly.”
EarthGen Technology: Taiwan’s Democratic Supply Chain Enters Japan
Nox Chen, the founder of EarthGen Technology, brought a decade of engineering experience and a seventh-generation heavy-lift drone to the Japan Drone and AAM Expo 2026. EarthGen is a Taiwan-based company that traces its origins to research conducted at NCKU, widely regarded as Taiwan’s top engineering university. It has since grown into a production-ready operation with serious manufacturing capacity behind it.
The drone Nox showcased is the EG7, the seventh iteration in EarthGen’s EG Series, each generation refined based on field experience and market feedback. Nox said the company never sold its first model because it simply was not good enough, a discipline that shaped an aircraft now capable of lifting 50 kilograms. The EG7 supports chemical spraying for precision agriculture, logistics delivery, and solar panel washing, reflecting EarthGen’s philosophy that the drone itself functions more like a vehicle, with its value determined entirely by the application.
Nox was candid about why EarthGen chose Japan specifically for this expansion. He anticipates that Japan will phase out Chinese-made drones within the next one to two years, and EarthGen, operating from Taiwan with what he called a “democracy supply chain,” is positioned to fill that gap at a price point more competitive than U.S. alternatives. The company’s production infrastructure draws on investment from Crystal, a major Taiwanese manufacturer with over 10,000 employees, giving EarthGen the capacity to supply at scale. “The future is very close,” Nox said. “There will be a lot of drones flying around the sky doing different kinds of jobs.”
Read Part 1 of this series to meet four more innovative large drone companies from the Japan Drone and AAM Expo 2026, including Terra Labo, Topia, QUKAI, and their remarkable platforms.