Open innovation, the process of creating never-before-seen enterprises and services by sharing ideas and technologies across conventional organizational boundaries, is rapidly gaining traction at Mitsubishi Electric. One fruit of this approach has been a VR flying car experience developed with a Japanese volunteer organization — a first step towards making aerial mobility a reality in the future that also serves as a clear demonstration of the benefits of wind data collected by the company’s Doppler lidar (laser-based detection) system.

A Culture of Co-Creation

Mitsubishi Electric is a global market leader in the development and manufacture of factory automation solutions, elevators, power systems, air conditioners, and home appliances. In the past, each of these business areas conducted its own R&D. However, Mitsubishi Electric has lately been encouraging a culture of open innovation in all of its divisions and affiliates, hoping this will allow for more agile responses to the rapid changes and demands of the times.

Open innovation involves rethinking the traditional concept of an organization. It encourages businesses to co-create through intra- and inter-company sharing of knowledge and technology, in the process arriving at revolutionary breakthroughs that would otherwise be difficult to achieve. In April 2020, Mitsubishi Electric established a Business Innovation Group to promote this trend internally.

The Group encourages R&D collaborations between the company’s many business areas and proactively seeks partnerships with startups and research institutes otherwise unaffiliated with the Mitsubishi name. The company is particularly focused on creating innovative, new undertakings and services in four fields expected to grow in the future: life (energy conservation, livelihood and environmental technologies), mobility (autonomous vehicles, control systems), infrastructure (security systems, monitoring systems), and industry (labor-saving technologies, factory automation, and other productivity-enhancing solutions).

A Fateful Encounter

One project that has resulted from this emphasis on open innovation is a VR flying car experience created through a collaboration with Dream On, a volunteer organization that has been working on building a flying car since 2014. In the summer of 2020, Dream On (which began as Cartivator but rebranded under the current name in 2021) successfully completed Japan’s first manned test flight of a flying car in collaboration with SkyDrive, another flying car developer.

Mitsubishi Electric’s first encounter with Dream On was at the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) Tokyo, a co-working space designed to help accelerate innovation. (Mitsubishi Electric maintains an office there as part of its open innovation mission.) It all started when Dream On, also a tenant of CIC Tokyo, was short on manpower and approached Mitsubishi Electric for help transporting a model flying car.

The collaboration came to fruition when Mitsubishi Electric offered the use of its Doppler lidar-based wind visualization technology for Dream On’s immersive VR flight experience. It is currently being exhibited at Flex Park, a futuristic co-creation theme park that opened in Tokyo in December 2021.

"People often encounter difficulties getting around on the ground, such as traffic or a lack of paved roads," says Tsubasa Nakamura, one of the representatives of Dream On. "We want to give them a future where they can travel through the air in a convenient, safe, and comfortable way. But to accelerate the timeline for achieving our vision, we need to discuss such a future with many different people and work together to create solutions." He sees the VR flight experience project as an important step in building the social momentum necessary to make aerial mobility a reality.

Kazuki Nobue of the Business Innovation Projects Division, part of Mitsubishi Electric’s Business Innovation Group, says that Dream On’s vision and objectives resonated with the company.

Mitsubishi Electric is currently developing a flight safety service for aerial mobility vehicles, such as drones and flying cars, that makes use of high-precision wind data obtained from Doppler lidar systems, which have been installed so far at airports in Japan and overseas. Nobue explains that the company decided to collaborate with Dream On out of a desire to provide a clearer picture of the benefits of wind data and produce case studies that demonstrate these benefits. This would allow the company to more meaningfully discuss wind data with the company’s stakeholders. "Since we shared Dream On’s vision and goals," he says, "we felt that creating content together would benefit us both. That’s when I reached out to see if they were interested."

The timing couldn’t have been better for both parties.

Action Trumps Everything

Doppler lidar sensors collect high-precision data on wind direction and speed by emitting a laser beam into a space and measuring how the light scatters and reflects off of particles (aerosols) moving through the air. Since this technology allows wind measurements to be taken at points above or in front of a sensor, unlike with conventional measurement instruments, it is expected to play an essential role in a future where aerial mobility is common.

The VR experience created by Dream On and Mitsubishi Electric simulates flying to Haneda Airport in Tokyo from the roof of a building where the head office of Mitsubishi Electric is located. For the project, Mitsubishi Electric designed a user interface that incorporates wind data to ensure a safe flight. When visitors to Flex Park get into Dream On’s model flying car and put on their VR goggles, they see a 3D-mapped cityscape of Tokyo appear in high definition before their eyes. During the "flight," the car moves back and forth, simulating the car’s acceleration and the movement of air currents for a more realistic experience.

Of course, there is more to this collaboration than creating a VR flight experience, however realistic and exciting it may be. The end goal is to bring aerial mobility into the real world.

"Working with Dream On has helped us boost the value and importance of wind data and make our presence known in the aerial mobility market," says Nobue, "but this is just the beginning. We will continue to work towards our goal of establishing a wind data-based aerial mobility safety service. We will be talking to many different parties to shape the service, as well as the rules, in line with market and customer demand. I hope these efforts will help us launch new data-based projects, while also helping other new projects expand their scope. These projects could breathe new life into Mitsubishi Electric."

The company is looking forward to creating a more exciting future, says Nobue. He explains that, by always maintaining a broad perspective and a flexible, open mind when communicating with others, the company seeks to absorb new ideas and boldly take on new challenges so it can play a role in realizing such a future.

"I think innovation requires diversity and inclusion. My favorite saying is ‘Action trumps everything.’ We will need to do more than just think to allow this exciting future to take shape — we will also need to take action to make our ideas a reality."

(This article was originally published on February 10, 2022)

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