UTokyo Solar Boat Racing Team YATAGARASU won second place in the Solar A Class and received the Chairman’s Special Award at the 2025 Japan Solar and Human-Powered Boat Race

On December 7, 2025, UTokyo Solar Boat Racing Team YATAGARASU won second place in the Solar A Class and received the Chairman’s Special Award at the 2025 Japan Solar and Human-Powered Boat Race.

The awardees' affiliations are listed below:

Natsumi Miki (Systems Innovation, Faculty of Engineering, B3), Takato Sawaki (Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, School of Engineering, M2), Makoto Nakagawa (Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, M2), Ataka Taguchi (Department of Ocean Technology, Policy, and Environment, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, M2), Patric Connolly, Junyi Xia (Center for Global Education, First year)

About awarded research

This activity is carried out by students participating in the “Solar Boat Challenge” of Creative Engineering Project of Faculty of Engineering and School of Engineering. The team develops solar boats by leveraging a wide range of ship development technologies, including CFRP molding, machining, fluid measurement, and electronic control. This year, efforts focused on improving cruising performance through performance evaluation and refinement of the hydrofoils and propulsion system, resulting in the team’s first successful race finish and marking a significant step forward compared with last year.

In addition, the project incorporates MBSE/MBD concepts into the development process, aiming to verify a next-generation ship development process that establishes a front-loaded design and verification loop centered on an integrated simulator. The level of development was further advanced through the realization of driver-in-the-loop maneuvering tests in a virtual environment, as well as evaluation and improvement using sensor data.

Your impression & future plan

In the design, manufacturing, and race of the solar boat, we received tremendous support and cooperation from many individuals, companies, and organizations. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to those who made donations through the Solar Boat Project Support Fund of the UTokyo Foundation (https://utf.u-tokyo.ac.jp/project/pjt179), as well as to the faculty and staff who provided guidance and support, the project researchers and the partner institutions of the Maritime and Ocean Digital Engineering (MODE), Graduate School of Frontier Sciences (http://mode.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp/).

Looking ahead, we will first focus on the redesign of the propulsion system, which is currently a major technical bottleneck, and work toward achieving hydrofoil-assisted cruising, our greatest challenge. In the long term, we aim to introduce digital twin methodologies that synchronize the real vessel with its simulator, with the goal of realizing autonomous navigation and remote control. Data obtained through these developments will be fed back into the integrated simulator, and we plan to establish an MBSE/MBD-based design and verification loop as a foundational element of our development process.

We sincerely appreciate your continued support and cooperation with UTokyo Solar Boat Racing Team. Please note that this activity can be taken as part of the Creative Engineering Project of Faculty of Engineering and School of Engineering. Even if you are not enrolled in these projects, we warmly welcome anyone who is interested in this activity to contact us.

[Contact]

Department of Systems Innovation, School of Engineering

Professor MURAYAMA Hideaki

murayama@sys.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp