AquaAge Announces Alpha Release of Drone AI “AIRPHA”

AquaAge Inc. is pleased to announce that it has released the alpha version (MVP) of “AIRPHA,” a next-generation drone AI platform that adds specialized AI functions to existing commercial drones, enabling more advanced object recognition, obstacle avoidance, and autonomous flight, in August 2025.

In recent years, the practical use of drones as a means of solving social issues has been attracting attention in a wide range of fields. While commercial drones offered by various manufacturers are highly functional, the AI functions required for each application, such as construction, agriculture, disaster investigation, and infrastructure inspection, differ, and in many cases they are unable to fully meet on-site needs.

As a result, drone operations remain at level 3 (manual control), requiring one pilot and several assistants to operate the aircraft, which can easily lead to rising labor costs and hinder the widespread adoption and adoption of drones.

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Against this backdrop, AquaAge, a startup from Nagoya University, is working to solve these issues by bringing together the technology and experience it has cultivated in the development of autonomous driving, intelligent robots, and AI.

AI technology demonstration using in-house developed drones

AquaAge has independently developed its original drone series “Tombo-chan”*1 for research and development purposes and has been demonstrating AI functions for drones. In particular, “Tombo-chan No. 2,” which combines AI and sensing technology, is a world-class smart drone that achieves millimeter-level autonomous flight and 360-degree environmental awareness.

Drone AI solution business

AquaAge is developing a drone AI solutions business by providing both “commercial drones” and “business-specific AI.”
In addition to AI-based object recognition and millimeter-level obstacle avoidance, the drones are equipped with advanced autonomous control technology, including a “drone autonomous thinking” function that utilizes VLM (Vision-Language Model: an AI model that integrates vision and language). This significantly reduces the burden on pilots, simultaneously reducing labor costs and improving operational efficiency.

Next-generation drone AI platform “AIRPHA”

We have developed the next-generation drone AI platform “AIRPHA” by integrating the business-specific AI we have cultivated in our drone AI solutions business. Our main target is drone service companies that are considering introducing AI to reduce labor costs and improve business efficiency. We provide these companies with AIRPHA’s advanced AI functions via a monthly subscription (SaaS).

SOURCE: PRTimes