Aerones corporation which is founded and based in Latvia, has developed a drone that washes windows. We caught up with Janis Putrams, who is the CEO of Aerones and asked him about his company.
By using a large tethered drone which is 55 kg (121 ibs) that gets it’s power and water from a station on the ground the company states that it is able to dramatically reduce the time that it takes to do structural cleaning and maintenance by tall structures such as building, wind turbines, and planes.
The company says that it can clean building and other structures up to 20 times faster than a human using traditional ropes and pulley’s hanging from a basket from the side of building.
DroneLife: How did you get the idea for Aerones?
Janis: We started about three years ago. We saw the potential for heavy-lift drones as there seems to be a gap between small copters and big helicopters. Our initial goal was to build a drone that can lift 100kg. The current drone can lift 200kg and also has the feature to provide power with a tether for almost unlimited flight.
DroneLife: What are a few interesting client use cases that you could reference?
Janis: There are some very industrial use cases like wind turbine cleaning, painting, spraying protective coatings and deicing. A huge market is in window cleaning and we have done some fun experiments with different sports as well like drone boarding.
DroneLife: What is your most important world market? North America, Europe, Asia, or Africa?
Janis: As of now we focus mostly on wind turbines and it is a global market. We will start with Europe and North America. There is much interest from the Middle East, India, China and South America as well.
DroneLife: Where do you see the market growth coming from?
Janis: Many of the jobs that we can do with our drone is currently done by industrial climbers. That job is dangerous, slow and expensive. There are usually significant insurance costs and sometimes difficulty getting experienced personnel as well. Our drone is much faster and no person has to go up in ropes and risk his life. Another market that has shown a lot of interest if firefighting. Our drone can do firefighting in great heights where no ladder truck can reach. Though wind turbines is easier to start with and we need to keep focus and think how we spend our resources.
In addition to washing windows, the company is marketing the cleaning and maintenance of tall structures such as deicing planes, wind turbine cleaning and painting as well as for uses in Firefighting for tall structures.
Using it’s ability to fly it allows access for firefighting for much higher structures than would be possible using traditional firefighting equipment such as a boom from a truck. Being tethered allows it much longer flight times and uninterrupted access to water.
Aerones is looking to fill a category of applied technology for specific use cases and is an example of how drone technologies can help to fill a specific business need with advantages in cost savings and human safety.
Vidoes have been taken from the Aerones website.