Flying robot bags drone start-up award
abu dhabi — Voliro, a flying robot, has won the Krypto Labs’ Drone Innovation Start-Up contest held in Abu Dhabi. Titled ‘Hands in the Sky’, the drone designed by a Swissbased start-up has the ability to perform acrobatic manoeuvres, which opens up a world of new possible applications. Voliro has two unique products — a hexa-copter and a tricopter — which can do inspections of infrastructures and paint and clean high-rise buildings.
Mina Kamel, co-founder, said Voliro will help do away with temporary structure of scaffolding and having workers hanging on from ropes or using cranes. Hexa-copter is suited for visual inspection of complex structures.
“The hexa-copter has propellers which can be tilted in any direction, which is a unique feature. This helps us to do activities which can’t be done with other drones. We run complex control algorithms to achieve the manoeuvres,” Kamel said.
Talking about tri-copter, Kamel said the system is meant for physical interaction, which is again a unique feature.
“It has a manipulator. It can fly 90 degrees vertically and tilt horizontal, and do also upside down flights. Such features are coming to the market for the first time. The ability to interact with the environment in unique,” Kamel said.
Elaborating further about the utility services, he said: “Inspection of infrastructure is a continuous process. And at times, visual inspection isn’t enough and a physical one is required for sense of placement. An internal structure
The hexa-copter has propellers which can be tilted in any direction, which is a unique feature. This helps us to do activities which can’t be done with other drones.” Mina Kamel, co-founder of Voliro
of the pipe needs to be checked using scaffoldings, having people hanging on ropes or using cranes, which is risky and expensive. ‘Hand in the Sky’ offers omnidirectional drones that can interact with the environment. Voliro system is equipped with manipulator and can extend its arm, place a sensor on the wall and get the measurements needed and thus be helpful for inspection tasks.”
He noted that both systems complement each other.
“We have no competition as there is so far no commercial solution offering aerial physical interaction.”
Making a comparison with other drone systems, he said: “A normal drone will need to be tilted to touch the environment, which is an unstable configuration. A small wind gust or any disturbance will lead to a crash, which is why we haven’t seen a drone interact with the environment yet. But the platform we are proposing, you can correct disturbance, be in a stable position and apply force on the environment. Also, we have compliance in our interaction unit to handle collisions and impacts.”
It is a small team of enthusiasts working for a year and developing the drone at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The next step would be having a platform to find researchers who can give feedback.
The team has already held talks with entities in the UAE regarding using Voliro in the country.
In the competition, there were more than 600 applicants from 61 countries. Five finalists were shortlisted and Voliro eventually pocketed $500,000 in funding, and vital assistance, including mentorship.
Krypto Labs is the global incubator with a unique ecosystem for ground-breaking startups located in Masdar City.
ashwani@khaleejtimes.com