“One such drone is the Elios 3, designed and manufactured by Swiss company Flyability and used by major industry players like Veolia. Equipped as standard with a protective cage, impact-resistant exoskeleton, 16,000-lumen lighting rig, 4K camera and lidar, it can navigate through dark and dusty pipes while creating a live 3D model of the environment. The modular design means it can also be fitted with specialized payloads like explosive gas sensors or ultrasonic thickness gauges.
Eloise McMinn Mitchell, communication manager at Flyability, says that the company is seeing huge sales growth as a result of the Elios 3’s capabilities and efficiency versus in-person human inspections, particularly when it comes to sewers. “To inspect a stretch of sewer underneath a road, you’ll need teams of at least four people and have to divert traffic in multiple locations. With the drone, you just need two people, and nobody has to climb into the sewer, eliminating confined space risks and exposure to hazardous environments.”
A weekly dispatch featuring exclusive interviews with deep tech founders & a roundup of the most important deep tech news.
- New material may help us build Predator-style thermal vision specs
- The US has approved CRISPR pigs for food
- Crypto venture capital fundraising springs back to life
- After convincing senators he supports Artemis, Isaacman nomination advances
- Rivian’s reportedly sitting on a stockpile of tariff-free batteries
- Pentagon warns it’s not prepared for homeland drone attack
- US Army to Test 3D-Printed Drones for Detecting Electromagnetic Threats
- TSMC Starts Building Third Arizona Fab to Ramp Up US Expansion
- Heart Aerospace ditches Europe to focus on US operation
- Amgen invests $900M to expand Ohio biomanufacturing
- Oxy buys direct-air-capture firm Holocene
- Project cancellations threaten US clean energy manufacturing boom
- A new quantum algorithm speeds up solving a huge class of problems
- Fully automated laboratory heads into orbit to test food production in space
- Armed services committees propose $150B funding boost for defense
- China launches third batch of Guowang megaconstellation satellites
- French startup developing space weapon to defend satellites and clean orbital debris
- DARPA takes aim at China’s telecom hacks in AI-cyber contest
- Amazon launches first 27 operational Kuiper satellites to compete with Starlink
- Defense tech company Epirus delivers counter-drone swarms to Navy
- Meet the companies racing to build quantum chips
Japan has unveiled its experimental electromagnetic railgun weapon system, designed to intercept hypersonic missiles by launching projectiles at incredible speeds of up to 2,500 meters per second using electromagnetic energy instead of explosives. Recently tested on the JS Asuka warship under the observation of Vice Admiral Omachi Katsushi, this technology could potentially make Japan the first country to deploy this kind of next-generation air defense after the US abandoned its own $500 million railgun program in 2021. Japan has already achieved a milestone with the first successful shipboard firing test of a railgun on the open sea in October 2023, following a defense cooperation agreement with France and Germany. (via NextGenDefense)
- Exploring Valles Marineris on Mars with helicopters, not rovers
- Superconducting qubits enable new quantum simulations and advanced control systems
- Precision-engineered surface can enhance silicon solar cell performance
- Ultrasound and microrobots team up to boost stem cell therapy for brain repair
- Engineers advance toward a fault-tolerant quantum computer
- Geoengineering technique could cool planet using existing aircraft
- Quality of 3D printing with lunar regolith varies based on feedstock
- Large-scale cryopump developed for fuel/helium separation in fusion applications
- True Anomaly raises $260M Series C to increase its headcount, ramp up its production capacity, and support future missions to GEO and cislunar space
- AI biotech Stately Bio raises $12M for cell imaging
- Deepull raises €50M for bloodstream infection test
- EnChannel Medical, an innovator in cardiac electrophysiology, raises $82.2M in Series-B financing
- Diabetes life sciences company Zucara Therapeutics raises $5M in second and final closing of $25M Series B financing
- Epicore Biosystems raises additional $6M to develop sweat-sensing wearables
- Rare earth metals refining company Phoenix Tailings closes on additional $33M in funding
- Neurodiagnostics startup CND Life Sciences closes $13.5M Series A funding
- Rising star defense tech startup Mach Industries is raising $100M, sources say
- Synthetic Design emerges with $20M and next-gen ADC platform
- Axiom raises $15M to build AI models for drug toxicity
- Can AI chips make the grid smarter? Utilidata raises $60M to find out.
- NATO-Backed German Defense Startup, ARX Robotics, raises $35.2M for UK Plant
- Apex raises $200M to accelerate satellite production
- IXI raises $36.5M for world’s first autofocus glasses
- Near Space Labs nabs $20M to take its high-res imaging Swift robots into the stratosphere
- Amazon-backed Glacier gets $16M to expand its robot recycling fleet
- Early cancer detection startup Craif raised a $22M Series C
- Dutch energy tech firm iwell closes €27M funding
- Queens Carbon, a developer of new cement technology, raised a $10M seed round
Will AI Ever Understand Language Like Humans? / Mysterious Glowing Structure Discovered Near Solar System / California is nearly out of license plate numbers / A cheat sheet for why using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment / The record-breaking tunnel being built from Denmark to Germany / Disney worker who hacked menus gets 3 years in prison / Making a game from scratch using only a guitar / After 53 years, a failed Soviet Venus spacecraft is crashing back to Earth / LSD atom swap tunes out hallucinations / Adidas’ 3D-printed shoes are launching globally on May 2nd / Neurotech companies are selling your brain data, senators warn / Pigs can regrow their adult teeth. What if humans could, too? / Built-in safeguards might stop AI from designing bioweapons / AI model found to be better than humans at picking puppies that will be good service dogs / What your earwax can reveal about your health