Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Shield AI have completed autonomous flight tests in Japan, integrating Shield AI’s Hivemind autonomy software into MHI’s Affordable Rapid-Prototyping Mitsubishi Drone (ARMD) prototypes in under two months.
The project began in September 2025, with Hivemind Enterprise enabling rapid AI development, training, simulation evaluation, and hardware-in-the-loop testing. Previously, MHI relied on multiple open-source products for such efforts, demanding significant resources. Hivemind allowed focus on mission autonomy development.
Two 20kg test vehicles, ARMD-01 and ARMD-02, underwent flights on November 7, 2025, in Inashiki District, Ibaraki Prefecture, and December 18, 2025, in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture. The drones demonstrated reinforcement learning, trained behaviors, and coordinated motions while tracking a virtual air vehicle. The second flight featured more aggressive maneuvers based on learnings from the first.
Conducted outside Tokyo under Japan’s Civil Aeronautics Act, the tests complied with mandatory registration for aircraft over 100g and required flight permissions for controlled airspace. These demonstrations support MHI’s work on collaborative combat aircraft (CCAs) and its role in the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) with Leonardo and BAE Systems, where attritable CCAs enhance sixth-generation fighter operations.
The collaboration accelerates domestic mission autonomy for UAVs, aligning with Japan’s evolving drone regulations.