Yamaha's RMAX - the worlds most advanced non-military UAV

UPDATED Nov 19, 2004 The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), is a term you'll hear a lot more about over the coming years. In the past it has mainly been mentioned whenever a technologically advanced country (aka the USA) is involved in warfare. The biggest advantage of a UAV is that it can be put 'in harm's way' - it can be put in a dangerous situation where the odds of losing a pilot (the most valuable part of any aircraft) are simply too great. Now Yamaha has unveiled a range of Unmanned Ground, Marine and Air Vehicles that bring autonomous capability to the world around us.

As technology has advanced rapidly in recent decades, the cost of UAVs has fallen rapidly, and now corporations and universities all over the globe are working on various types of UAVs to perform tasks which were previously too expensive, in financial or human terms, to be considered.

Filming a volcanic eruption from close quarters, for example, is something people have simply not been able to do before now. The Yamaha RMAX helicopter is the most advanced commercially available UAV in the world right now.

Long known for its musical instruments and motorcycles, Yamaha's unlikely direction for diversification was the result of yet another Japanese Government initiative, which supported the development of high technology to solve practical everyday problems.

Yamaha's development of utility-use unmanned helicopters began with a request in 1983 from the external branch of the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, which was also in charge of agricultural aviation. They wanted an unmanned helicopter for crop dusting that could help reduce labour and costs in Japan's labour-strapped rice farming industry.

After extensive research and development efforts, Yamaha completed its first utility-use unmanned helicopter, the 'R-50' in 1987. It was the world's first unmanned helicopter for crop dusting with a 20 kg payload. Adoption at agricultural schools around the country began in 1988, and in 1991 the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan passed guidelines for training in the use of the R-50 for crop dusting of rice paddies.

With this, Yamaha Motor began full-scale marketing of the R-50 helicopter, powered by a liquid-cooled, 2-stroke, 98cc, 12 hp engine. The helicopter enabled high-value crops in difficult-to-access paddy fields, often on very hilly land, to be sprayed with pesticides and specialised nutrients. In some cases this replaced labour which had been done by hand at extreme expense, or work done by manned full-scale helicopters which was equally as expensive but faster.

Once development was underway, the myriad applications for a low-cost aerial platform became obvious - aerial photography was suddenly possible at a fraction the cost of the conventional full-scale helicopter. Experienced helicopter pilots are very expensive to hire and remain in short supply despite the hourly rates they command.

By 1998, Yamaha had developed an entirely new machine based on the research work it had done over the previous seven years. The RMAX brought with it dramatic improvements in functionality and operability. Whereas the R-50 had been powered by a 98cc, 12 hp engine, the RMAX mounted a liquid-cooled 2-stroke, 246cc, horizontally-opposed twin-cylinder, crankcase reed valve intake engine rated at 21 hp.

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