As a drone operator and firm proprietor myself, that implies that I’m at all times looking for methods to extend my revenue margins for my drone enterprise.
A key a part of that is discovering the perfect drone on the lowest value, however that has at all times come on the expense of flight time. As a result of there are at present solely two choices.
- Choice 1: a less expensive industrial drone at about $12k (and above) to get any kind of payload capability as much as 5 lbs and perhaps half-hour of flight time.
- After which Choice 2: a industrial drone that makes use of unique supplies (and designs) for far more flight time – maybe over an hour – however I must fork over $50k to $100k+.
Choice 1 has at all times been the manageable alternative – regardless of all its inherent issues. Sure, I’ll purchase the additional batteries. I’ll fly forwards and backwards from the job website shedding time to swap batteries. I’ll monitor and cost batteries in my workplace and in my SUV – and wherever I can discover a plug – in order that I’m not in panic mode on the job website apprehensive about whether or not I’ve sufficient batteries to finish the job.
I’ll even purchase a number of drones and have performed so frequently. Sure, I’m incurring prices (which additionally damage my revenue margins) but it surely nonetheless has been higher than the upfront value of Choice 2.
The co-founders of Modovolo, Erik, CTO, and Justin, CEO, have skilled the identical ache. Erik is an aerospace engineer, and former USAF Captain, however most significantly for the final 5 years, he’s been a industrial drone pilot. He noticed the identical points with Choice 1 and Choice 2 and he acknowledged the core issues with each.
“I spotted that the rationale for brief flight instances in drones is their fixed-hub design. There’s a whole lot of redundant and extreme construction. That provides a whole lot of weight. And the propeller design and the the electrical motor RPMs are very inefficient. If you add these issues collectively, it interprets to quick flight time.”
I’ve had comparable ideas. Drone design actually hasn’t developed that a lot for the reason that daybreak of drones over 15 years in the past.
However Erik went one step additional.
Erik explains, “Why do I would like to purchase a brand new drone for every utility? It was driving me nuts. I simply spent $12k on a drone that might carry 5 lbs of payload solely to seek out out later that for one more job the payload was 7 lbs. However this meant I wanted to spend one other $18k to get a drone only for that payload. It’s completely loopy. Take into consideration if Dell required that we purchase one laptop for phrase processing and one other laptop for spreadsheets. We might by no means conform to that. Why can we conform to this for drones?”
I feel we’ve all had these comparable ideas but it surely’s not clear the best way to repair all of those issues with present drone design.
Justin feedback, “We knew we needed to re-think drone design from the underside up. An entire departure from what has been performed up to now. We additionally knew that, to get the price down – approach down – we wanted to keep away from not solely costly supplies but additionally something that will complicate the manufacturing course of.”
That is the place the hero enters the story, the bicycle wheel.
Erik explains, “We constructed many, many, many prototypes and nothing was working. We weren’t getting the breakthrough lightness we wished in order that we might obtain wonderful flight instances. That’s when the proverbial gentle bulb went off. I spotted that the bicycle wheel had all of the traits we wanted. Mild, robust, and rugged. It’s actually an underappreciated technological marvel and nobody had ever thought to make use of it in aerospace.”
That is additionally the place the Lego idea was born.
Erik continues, “We subsequent realized that the bicycle wheel had yet one more profit. It meant that we had been not constrained to at least one design. You possibly can join them collectively in any configuration you need for the mission at hand. Want extra thrust to carry a heavier payload or want extra flight time? Simply add extra Elevate Pods.”
After 2 ½ years of improvement and submitting a bunch of patents to guard all elements of the Elevate Pod and the modularity idea, the crew got here out of stealth mode simply this March 2024 and launched a pre-order web site.
“We’re within the strategy of getting our first manufacturing manufacturing cell arrange and we’re providing a restricted run of 200 pre-orders. These prospects will get assured manufacturing precedence, particular entry to our engineering crew, a restricted version modovolo t-shirt, and get to direct what sorts of Utility Pods we’ll construct first.” Justin states.
You possibly can go to modovolo.com to study extra and get your pre-order right this moment.
