Switzerland
HOME OF DRONES
Drone No. 1: OS4
First ever quadrotor system in free flight
OS4 was the world’s first freely flying quadrotor drone. It was developed by the Autonomous Systems Lab at EPFL (now at ETH Zurich) in 2004. This pioneering work by Samir Bouabdallah, Roland Siegwart and others triggered much new research in the field. Moreover, it resulted in the current boom of the multicopters with millions of systems sold over the last few years. After the successful integration and demonstration of the OS4 control, several preliminary concepts for collision avoidance, height control and automatic landing were subsequently developed and demonstrated in 2006.
Year of birth: 2004
Place of birth: Lausanne
Measurements: 62 × 62 × 30 cm
Weight: 0.6 kg
Function: Research platform
Drone No. 2: ATLANTIKSOLAR
Towards low-altitude multi-day endurance
Originally built for the very first Atlantic crossing of an unmanned solar-powered aircraft, AtlantikSolar has demonstrated its long endurance capabilities: Its non-stop flight of 82 hours in summer 2015 set a new world record in flight endurance for UAVs of its size. By taking high-resolution images of remote glaciers in the arctic region in summer 2017, AtlantikSolar contributed to the research of glaciologists at ETH Zurich.
Year of birth: 2013
Place of birth: Zurich
Measurements: 560 x 200 x 45 cm
Weight: 6.7 kg
Functions: Multi-day sensing, mapping
Drone No. 3: WINGTRAONE
The VTOL drone for mapping and surveying
What started as an ambitious student project resulted in an easy-to-use product that is being used all over the world. Combining the advantages of multicopters and fixed-wing aircrafts, the WingtraOne is able to take off and land vertically on spot while still offering the high endurance needed to cover large areas with a professional grade payload.
Year of birth: 2016
Place of birth: Zurich
Measurements: 125 × 68 × 12 cm
Weight: 3.7 kg
Functions: Mapping, surveying
Drone No. 4: EBEE PLUS
Aerial efficiency, photogrammetric accuracy
EBEE PLUS is an ultra-light drone used for mapping purposes and produced by senseFly, the flagship of the Swiss drone industry. senseFly was created in 2009 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne and employs over a hundred people. Its products are used in surveillance, agriculture, the humanitarian sphere and industrial inspection. senseFly is the commercial dronesubsidiary of Parrot Group – the leading European group in the drone industry.
Year of birth: 2016
Place of birth: Lausanne, VD
Measurements: 110 × 60 cm
Weight: 1.1 kg
Functions: Surveying, agriculture, engineering and humanitarian aid
Minidrones produced by sensFly have been used in Zanzibar to map the country.
The Zanzibar Mapping Initiative is the most ambitious drone-driven mapping project in theworld.
Drone No. 5: VOLIRO T
Revolutionizing Work At Height
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.
Year of birth: 2019
Place of birth: Zurich
Measurements: 80x100x40 cm
Weight: 3.5 kg
Functions: Inspection (Spraying and Cleaning)
Drone No. 6: SKP125 An innovative drone to enable sustainable and affordable wind energy production
Skypull is an autonomous tethered drone that climbs to high altitudes. Up there, it captures the power of altitude winds that are stronger, more abundant and continuous than the winds driving conventional wind turbines. Skypull operates like a kite and transforms the wind into kinetic energy which is converted into electricity by a ground generator. By reaching higher altitudes and by avoiding heavy and cumbersome infrastructure, Skypull is cheaper and better deployable than current wind energy technologies.
Year of birth: 2017
Place of birth: Lugano
Measurements: 135 × 105 × 45 cm
Weight: 8 kg
Function: Airborne wind energy
Drone No. 7: ELIOS
Safe drone for inaccessible places
Flyability introduces the first collision-tolerant flying robot designed for industrial inspection professionals. Allowing for the first time access to complex, cluttered or indoor places, Elios is unleashing the potential of UAVs in a number of applications where their use was previously too dangerous or simply impossible. Inspection can be performed at lower costs, downtime, and risks.
Year of birth: 2018
Place of birth: Lausanne
Measurements: 40 × 40 × 40 cm
Weight: 1.4 kg
Function: Industrial inspection
Drone No. 8: PACKDRONE
A human-friendly transportation drone
Dronistics is an EPFL spin-off company that has developed a human-friendly drone delivery system. The company's product, PackDrone is a patented foldable drone that can carry 500 grams of payload over a distance of 2km. The PackDrone has a cage that protects people from its spinning propellers. The foldable design reduces storage volume by 92%. Additionally, Dronistics has developed a web application for portable devices that enables inexperienced users to send the drone from person to person in an intuitive manner.
Year of birth: 2018
Place of birth: Lausanne
Measurements: 65 × 65 × 43 cm (deployed)
Weight: 1.4 kg
Function: Delivery
Drone n° 9: Dpendent
Drone Independent System
Dpendent develops innovative solutions in advanced robotics & artificial intelligence allowing extended range and safe UAVs deployment in fully autonomous 24/7/365 applications. The D-LOG ONE automated logistics platform offers all types of working drones a replacement solution in less than one minute of their batteries, treatment liquids, seeds, parcels or other payload allowing them to carry out their mission continuously and without human intervention.
The solution offers a safe take-off & landing zone reducing human handling or third party risk.
Year of birth: 2015
Place of birth: Cully (Lavaux) – Vaud - Suisse
Function: Security, Defence, Agriculture/Viticulture, Delivery
Drone n°10: Aero41
Agricultural drone
Crop protection (agricultural spraying-)drone made in Switzerland with proprietary AI-capable FCS (Flight Control System) based on the internationally recognized PX4/MAVLink standards (also developed in Switzerland). The AGv2 has the been tested and deployed in the complex Swiss vineyard and proved the best quality of application available on the market… down to the lowest leaves!
Year of birth: 2019
Measurements: 2408*2408*546 mm
Weight: 42 kg MTOW (17 liter payload)
Place of birth: Lausanne, Switzerland
Function: Agriculture
