We are a small start-up developing a radically redesigned multirotor drone. We are currently developing Shenzhen, China. We believe that the drone has been underutilized in robotics applications and not realizing its true potential as a versatile work device. Our big vision for the company and the product is to create a drone workforce in the skies to do all manner of robotic type work (painting, welding, constructing, repairing, drilling, inspecting...). We want to make industrial work cheaper, faster and safer.
We have identified a key design flaw with existing drone designs which makes them unsuitable for force applications. The design we have created has many emergent benefits, but the biggest seems to be the ability to decouple the frame orientation (how the drone is tilting) from the course (how it is moving). This enables force applications by drone and not just visual/sensing applications. The design uses 2-DOF gimaballing at each rotor to isolate frame kinematics from the control and corrective actions of the motors.
Our first application is using the drone to conduct contact inspections which require UT (ultrasonic test) sensors. Detecting the thickness of metal walls in industrial structures (tanks, pressure vessels, ships, bridges...) is done via UT contact and requires workers to do this manually on ropes, scaffolding and manlifts. We propose doing this contact inspection remotely by drone contact to the surfaces.
