Aerodyne Group partners with Swiss startup Voliro to deploy aerial inspection robotics globally

• As first mover Aerodyne has opprotunity to tap technology’s full potential
• Voliro T drone revolutionizes working at height with tiltable rotors, extreme stability

Aerodyne Group, recently ranked to be the world’s No 1 Drone Services Provider announced today a strategic partnership with Voliro AG, a Swiss based startup and spin-off from ETH Zurich that specialises in developing advanced aerial robotics for inspection and maintenance of critical infrastructure.

Aerodyne, a DT3 (Drone Technology, Data Technology, and Digital Transformation) company with more than 500 Aerorangers across 35 countries, managing 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 it to offer more services to gain market entry and to conduct first proof of concepts with 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.  Conducting UTTM via drones 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 during operations.

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 cofounder of Voliro AG, states: “We are very happy and excited to work with Aerodyne. Together we are revolutionising 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 three.”