Elios 2: Perfect Indoor Drone

In this episode, the Roswell Flight Test Crew talks with Patrick Thévoz, the CEO and co-founder of Swiss drone manufacturer Flyability. The company's Elios drone was developed specifically for indoor flight: performing inspections of confined-space environments that would otherwise require a human to enter these dangerous locations. The original Elios was successful, but it relied on an extremely skilled pilot to successfully guide the aircraft, which could bounce around like a pinball during missions. The Elios 2 is a radical step forward, using a suite of sensors to provide a very high degree of stability in flight – resembling an outdoor drone employing GPS position hold. In addition, the new design places the sensor outside the cage, providing an unobstructed view of the environment and allowing for more sophisticated analytical processes, such as 3D modeling and photogrammetry.