Flyability makes drones with collision tolerance
The idea to make a drone that could enter confined spaces came to the company’s founders during the Fukushima disaster
DRONES have been around for a while now, but a new superior one with collision tolerance features for operations in confined spaces, including a cage that surrounds and protects the drone, has just hit the market.
It has been introduced by a Swiss company called Flyability, a spin-off from a top publicly-funded technical research university based in Lausanne – Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), or the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, specialising in natural sciences and engineering.
“The idea to make a drone that could enter confined spaces came to the company’s founders during the Fukushima disaster, when ground-based robots struggled to gain access to the reactor to get crucial data about the conditions inside...
‘What if we made a drone that could do that?’ they wondered,” says Niels Delore, the Singapore-based managing director for Apac of Flyability Asia Pacific.
The company pioneered confined space inspection drones, he says, creating new technology that allows inspectors to collect data remotely inside dangerous confined spaces instead of them having to do it in person.
Since the Lausanne-headquartered company’s launch in 2014, it has become a trusted provider of internal inspection solutions, enabling remote data collection with cutting-edge hardware and software for inspection professionals to help them improve safety, reduce downtimes, and cut costs for internal inspections.
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EPFL says it is Europe’s most cosmopolitan technical university as it welcomes students, professors and collaborators of more than 120 nationalities. It has both a Swiss and international vocation and focuses on 3 missions: teaching, research and innovation.
Adrien Briod, co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of Flyability, while pursuing his PhD at EPFL’s Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, developed and patented novel approaches for the stabilisation of flying robots in cluttered environments.
Throughout 6 years of research in the field, he mastered various aspects of flying robot tech, including mechanical, electrical and software engineering.
Increase efficiency
Delore says that Patrick Thevoz, the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Flyability, aims to increase efficiency and reduce risks for humans in industrial inspections. The vision of the co-founders is this: “No more humans doing dangerous jobs”.
Flyability’s technology enables drones to be used safely inside industrial assets such as boilers, pressure vessels, or areas within a mine and in contact with people.
“Our drones are designed to keep humans out of dangerous places to perform the most demanding inspection tasks. Industrial inspection in confined spaces and at height is incredibly dangerous and costly...
“Yet this work is still mostly done by workers in protective equipment, which requires shutting down assets such as power plants and factories for long periods of time, resulting in potential losses of revenue,” Delore tells BT.
By using Flyability’s indoor inspection drones, inspectors can stay out of harm’s way by collecting inspection data from a safe distance.
Drone-based inspection can reduce asset downtime from days to hours by avoiding the need for the erecting and taking-down of scaffolding and for following confined-space entry procedures.
Inspectors are using Flyability drones to obtain high-resolution images and videos showing minute details inside of industrial assets.
This data provides insights for operators that can be used in the ongoing maintenance of an asset and helps to reduce its internal inspection costs by as much as 90 per cent.
Currently, Flyability has more than 110 employees worldwide with branch offices in Denver, and Shanghai; in February it established its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore, led by Delore.
“The aim is to serve as the centre of the company's activities in the Apac market and to align more closely with our partners and customers in the region,” he says.
The company says it serves more than 1,000 customers in 66 countries directly and through a network of 50 resellers worldwide. Its dedicated professional service team provides education, support and customer success, and has local training and maintenance centres on all continents.
Delore says the company works with various industries globally and regionally that require internal inspection including power generation, oil and gas, mining and wastewater infrastructure.
Flyability’s clients range from local inspection companies to the world’s largest asset owners such as Dow, Exelon, Enel, BP and Chevron.
Asked about new products introduced in the market recently, Delore tells BT that the company has just launched its new indoor drone called Elios 3 in May.
“It’s the world's first collision-tolerant drone equipped with a LiDAR sensor for indoor 3D mapping.
As industries around the world scale up their use of drones, they need technology that is easy to use, performs the same way every time, and remains stable when working inside highly sensitive assets,” he adds.
Relying on the power of computer vision and Lidar (light detection and ranging) mapping, Elios 3 is a versatile indoor drone opening doors to a world where performing systematic inspections does not require months of training, reporting is done intuitively on a 3D model of the asset, and situational awareness is built into the piloting app.
Creating 3D maps in real time
Delore says that Elios 3 flies using Flyability’s proprietary SLAM engine FlyAware, which allows it to create 3D maps in real time, while the drone is in flight.
In addition, inspectors can create survey-grade 3D models using software from Flyability’s partner GeoSLAM.
“By combining the best of confined-space drone data capture and 3D geospatial software technology, Flyability's partnership with GeoSLAM enables professionals to produce highly precise and accurate point clouds of the most inaccessible places in their workplace, completely removing the strain of approximations and guesswork from their operations,” says Delore.
“In addition to carrying a Lidar sensor, the Elios 3 can accommodate a second payload that allows it to be customised for each individual user's needs.”
Looking ahead, Delore sees good business prospects for the recently opened Singapore office.
“As industrial companies in Asia are ramping up their effort to adopt drone-based technology for inspections and maintenance processes, we are committed to providing our customers and partners with easier access to industry solutions and support...
“The opening of an Apac office in Singapore supports the company’s current growth and future ambitions of expanding the team across the region.”
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