First Successful Lightning Triggering and Guiding Using a Drone

Summary

News Highlights: ◆We have achieved the world's first successful lightning triggering and guiding using a drone by harnessing electric field fluctuations. ◆We developed and validated a lightning protection cage design that prevents malfunction or damage even when the drone is struck directly by lightning. This design can also be implemented on commercial drones. ◆In the future, we aim to protect cities and infrastructure with "lightning drones," working toward a society free from lightning-related damage. TOKYO - April 18, 2025 - NTT Corporation (Headquarters: Chiyoda, Tokyo; President and CEO: Akira Shimada; hereinafter "NTT") has become the first in the world to successfully trigger and guide lightning using a drone. This experiment also demonstrated, under natural lightning conditions, the effectiveness of both the drone's lightning protection technology and the electric field-based lightning triggering method. These results are expected to contribute to further research on the still-mysterious mechanisms of lightning and to help reduce lightning-related damage to cities and people. Background Lightning strikes are one of the most destructive natural phenomena affecting human society. While the NTT Group has implemented various lightning protection measures for critical infrastructure—including telecommunications facilities—lightning-related damage remains a persistent issue. In Japan alone, the estimated annual cost of lightning damage ranges from 100 to 200 billion yen1. Building on its long-standing expertise in protecting communications equipment from lightning, NTT is now working to advance this technology further, with the aim of eliminating lightning strikes on infrastructure and urban areas altogether. Traditionally, lightning protection has relied heavily on lightning rods. However, their protective range is limited, and in some cases—such as wind turbines or outdoor event venues—it may not be feasible to install them. At NTT, we are exploring the use of ...