Aerodyne Group, the world’s No 1 Drone Services Provider and also the world’s leading DT3 (Drone Technology, Data Technology, and Digital Transformation) company announced today announced a strategic partnership with Voliro AG, aSwiss-based startup and spin-off from ETH Zurich that specializes in developing advanced aerial robotics for inspection and maintenance of critical infrastructure.
Aerodyne, with more than 500 Aerorangers across 35 countries, and has managed over 560,000 infrastructure assets via 458,058 flight operations, will receive an early adopter version of the Voliro T robotic platform. This platform will enable them to offer more services to gain priority in market entry and to conduct first proof of concepts with their customers.
The Voliro T can be equipped with a variety of sensors that perform contact/non-contact based measurements and thanks to the drone’s 360° flight design, can access hard-to-reach areas on industrial plants faster and with less risk than manual inspections.
One discipline that will greatly benefit from this technology is the advanced Non-Destructive Examination (NDE) of ultrasonic testing thickness measurement (UTTM) to provide a faster inspection and wider area coverage especially at elevated areas. By conducting UTTM via drones, it will eliminate or reduce the possibility of scaffolding erection, working at height and high operation cost that will provide value creation to the clients as well as ensuring a higher level of safety practice during operation.
As first movers, Aerodyne will have the best chance of unleashing the technology’s full potential. This breakthrough collaboration will be kick-started by the training of Aerodyne’s senior pilots by Voliro personnel in September at their training facility in Zurich as part of knowledge transfer and operations know-how improvement.
Mina Kamel, CEO and Co-founder of Voliro AG, states: “We are very happy and excited to work with Aerodyne. Together we are revolutionizing work at height and will bring advanced robotic inspection technologies to the market, to enable faster, safer and better critical assets inspections.”
Aerodyne Group COO, Rossi Jaafar, says “We have built a strong business in critical asset inspections and this partnership will give us an edge particularly in the health of our client’s structures like storage tanks, wind turbines, FPSOs/vessels or offshore platforms in the O&G sector. In fact, a recent project for ultrasonic testing thickness measurements of above ground tanks has shown a 20% savings in costs and reduction of time from 20 days to 3.”
About Voliro
Voliro is developing advanced flying robots to perform Inspection and Maintenance tasks more safely, cost-effectively and faster than traditional methods. With its tiltable rotor system, Voliro expands the abilities of service drones from
“fly and see” to “fly, see and touch”. The flying robot can be equipped with a variety of payloads, such as Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) sensors. The unique 360° drone design of the platform allows inspection of curved and sloped surfaces. No other flying inspection robot boasts these capabilities. Voliro aims to provide innovative UAVs with unique capabilities. We promote the concept of omnidirectional aerial vehicles, where the position and orientation of the flying platform are completely independent. This ability is crucial to achieving robust and reliable interaction with theenvironment.
About Aerodyne Group
Aerodyne Group (https://aerodyne.group) is a DT3 (Drone Tech, Data Tech, and Digital Transformation) drone-based enterprise solutions provider, and a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence as an enabling technology for large-scale data operations, analytics, and process optimization.
Aerodyne employs over 500 drone professionals to operate on an unprecedented level in the UAS services sector, having managed more than 560,000 infrastructure assets with 458,058 flight operations and surveyed over 380,000 km of power infrastructure across 35 countries globally.
Aerodyne is ranked first in the world by Drone Industry Insights (DII) in its ‘Drone Service Provider Ranking 2021’; was named Frost & Sullivan’s ‘Asia Pacific UAV Services Company of 2019’; and is a recipient of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) Malaysia’s ‘Industry Excellence Gold Award 2019’.
The company’s founder and Group CEO, Kamarul A Muhamed, is ‘EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2020’, ‘EY Technology Entrepreneur Of The Year 2020 Malaysia’ as well as ‘SEBA Entrepreneur Of The Year 2020’.