Israeli Airobotics raised $28.5 million

26 June, 2016

Waze CEO and Google ATAP’s COO among the investors. Airobotics has developed an autonomous drone operating platform, including automatic battery change and robotic installation of mission specific payload

Waze CEO and Google ATAP’s COO among the investors. Airobotics has developed an autonomous drone operating platform, including automatic battery change and robotic installation of mission specific payload

Airobotics drone is automatically services by the automated base station
Airobotics drone is automatically services by the automated base station

Israeli Airobotics completes a $28.5 million funding round. Numerous investors from the US and Israel took part in the successful funding round, amongst them Waze CEO Noam Bardin, Google ATAP’s Coo Richard Wooldridge and venture funds Bluerun, CRV, Ventures and UpWest Lab.

Airbotics was founded by CEO Ran Kraus and CTO Meir Kleiner. The Peta Tikwa, Israel based company employs 70 workers, developing an industrial drone preforming surveillance, inspection, monitoring and security tasks for infrastructure, large industrial and other strategical sites such as mines, sea ports or drilling sites.

The company’s drone is designed to withstand harsh environmental conditions and is fully autonomous. The drone’s navigation system is accurate to the centimeter and can start and land at the docking station for buttery recharge without human involvement. The recharging process itself is fully automated as well.

In the company’s video presentation, the company lists several specific applications for its drone – for example: securing large industrial installations, but not in the narrow sense of watching over perimeters, but a much wider sense including monitoring of pipelines, locating spill outs and even assessing raw material quantities on site through the use of cameras and photo processing software (for example – analyzing coal or phosphate stacks).

CEO Ran Kraus in fron of an automated base station
CEO Ran Kraus in fron of an automated base station

One of the major setbacks for the wide range use of drones in industry is the need for professional workforce for the complex operation of drones. Airobotics tries to overcome this problem by supplying a fully automated support platform that overtakes most of the tasks traditionally performed by a professional drone operator, thus allowing customer to enjoy the benefits of drones without having to recruit skilled and expensive workforce.

The kit provided by the company includes a four rotor drone and advanced control software, but the novelty of Airobotics solution lies in the third component of the drone kit – the automated base station. The automated station provides the drone with fully automated day to day maintenance services using fully automated robots.

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Posted in: Aerospace & Defense , News