Autonomous Drones |
The Israeli Drone fleet BladeRanger’s aces mission to clean German rooftops. BladeRanger's autonomous cleaning tech has impressed German train company Deutsche Bahn during a 100-day pilot program. The company recently pivoted, moving from ground-based robots to airborne drones via a strategic merger with Solar Drone, an aptly named Israeli company developing autonomous drone-based technology for planning, monitoring, maintaining, securing and cleaning solar panels based on technologies such as image generation, AI, machine learning, data mining, real-time alerts and more. BladeRanger’s journey began in 2015, with the development of non-flying robotic cleaners, a project that spanned nearly a decade. The company recently pivoted, moving from ground-based robots to airborne drones via a strategic merger with Solar Drone, an aptly named Israeli company developing autonomous drone-based technology for planning, monitoring, maintaining, securing and cleaning solar panels based on technologies such as image generation, AI, machine learning, data mining, real-time alerts and more. The high-tech drones, originally designed for inspecting and cleaning solar panels, are tackling a problem that has long plagued Deutsche Bahn’s German Railway Infrastructures Company: how to efficiently clean and maintain the vast expanses of glass roofing on its 5,400 train stations across Germany. “We demonstrated the ability to successfully clean one or two of their train stations, along with analyzing conditions with our AI software that analyzes not just the level of dirt and soiling on the roof, but also if there are all kinds of cracks or if there’s rust on the connection between the different parts of the glass,” says Oded Fruchtman, BladeRanger’s CEO. This comprehensive approach impressed the Deutsche Bahn team, leading to approval for further work on two train stations over the next 12 months. |