A new type of drone has taken off

Astria is an innovative aerial vehicle that flies a tool or sensor with hummingbird precision into difficult-to-access and dangerous places. This up-close and touch-capable inspection platform can automate robotic tasks, including inspection of bridges, wind turbines, towers, dams, and powerlines. It collapses for travel, swaps batteries for all-day operations, and has artificial intelligence cameras for added safety. 

Aerial inspection and maintenance jobs are dangerous

Our modern society depends on infrastructure which must be inspected and serviced regularly. Today, these tasks are performed manually by brave men and women who ascend to great heights on ropes, ladders, scaffolding, or even hang from helicopters. This critical job is one of the most dangerous jobs in America. One in 100 tower climbers die on the job in a 10-year career. 

Highly-trained bridge and wind turbine inspectors rappel with ropes to reach vertical infrastructure, and electrical linemen hang from helicopters or bucket trucks to reach power lines. Existing drones on the market cannot provide the precision needed to perform these tasks as they cannot compensate for even small wind disturbances.

Astria increases safety and profit

Pitch Aeronautics has developed an innovative aircraft to safely automate aerial inspections and maintenance. Astria can precisely position a 5-10lb payload up-close or in contact with a target by leveraging a precision cyclorotor propeller that can compensate for wind disturbances. 

^{*These images are computer-generated demo versions. The product is still currently under development.}

Astria offers an alternative to dangerous labor-intensive inspections at height. Astria can safely perform a more comprehensive inspection faster, and cheaper. This not only reduces inspection costs but also asset downtime minimizing lost revenue for the asset owner. Shutting down a wind turbine is costly, closing a bridge disrupts traffic, and turning off powerlines often isn’t an option.

Features:

• Cyclorotor: Quickly changes the amount and direction of thrust for precise control. Today cyclorotors are used on tugboats to help precisely position ships in harbors. 
• Interchangeable Payloads: Different sensors, tools, or even robotic arms can be easily swapped on the front of Astria to match the mission. The payloads are mounted on an arm away from the center of the drone to interact with the inspection or maintenance target and keep it away from the rotors.
• Positioning sensors: Artificial intelligence-enabled cameras help the aircraft navigate safely and avoid obstacles without needing to rely on GPS.
• First-person view (FPV): Astria is operated with FPV goggles (similar to VR goggles) that allow the operator to see what Astria sees and fly precisely next to a target even when they are on the ground far away.
• Swappable battery: 20 minutes of eco-friendly flight time with a full payload. Future battery options will enable even longer flight times.
• Collapsible: Easily assembled or disassembled in minutes for airline and car travel.

The Astria can be adapted for:

• Bridge Inspections: An in-development crack measurement sensor and an active thermography sensor can be deployed on Astria to measure and record crack widths and identify delamination (broken layers) beneath concrete which is undetectable by the naked eye.
• Wind Turbine Inspections: Our active thermography sensor can identify delamination between the layers of fiberglass on wind turbine blades.
• Powerline Inspections:  A new payload arm is being developed that will install bird diverters (small reflectors) on live powerlines. Diverters reduce bird collisions helping boost avian populations and decrease power outages.  In the future, other payload arms could help install vibration dampers, inspect and replace cotter keys, install marker balls, and even repair woodpecker hole damage.

Payloads:

Astria is a flexible platform designed to carry a spectrum of payloads. We have already built and are testing a crack-width measurement sensor and active thermography sensor. We are currently developing a payload arm to install bird diverters on powerlines. Future payloads for robotic, up-close, and touch inspections include eddy current testing, ultrasound, ground-penetrating radar, powerwashers, paint sprayers, caulking/sealant/foam guns, robotic arms, and much more.

$200B inspection market ready for repair

The global inspection market is worth $200B. In the U.S. there are 617,000+ bridges, 57,000 wind turbines, 90,000 dams, 417,000 towers, and 5.5 million miles of powerlines whose inspection is mandated by law. Climbers are in high demand due to the construction of new 5G towers. Pitch Aeronautics has built the only aerial platform that can put a heavy payload in precise contact with an inspection target. It can compensate for wind gusts 10x faster than existing drones.

Here are the facts: 

• 1/9 of U.S. bridges are structurally deficient.
• 42% of all bridges are at least 50 years old. $125B is the estimated cost to repair deficient U.S bridges.
• $10,000 is the cost to rent a medium-sized snooper truck for a week of work.
• 3,800 wind turbine blades fail every year often due to delamination, and bonding failures.
• 1950s - the decade most of the powerlines were built with an intended 50 year lifespan.
• 70% of US power infrastructure is more than 25 years old.

  $150B is lost in the US from power outages. The US has more power outages than any other developed country. 

• ¼ - the portion of power outages in the US are attributed to birds and other animals.

State-recognized product with 1 patent awarded and another patent pending for our innovative technology

We believe Pitch Aeronautics is out in front of any potential competition. We have demonstrated our 6’x9’ 40lb drone Astria, which leverages a suite of new technologies. Astria has already performed an up-close flight demonstration and two initial sensors are in testing. The State of Idaho was so impressed with our progress that they followed up their initial $250K grant with another $50k infusion of non-dilutive capital. We have protected our drone with a patent on our cyclorotor (awarded by USPTO) and another on our unique drone configuration (non-provisional patent pending). These patents protect our hardware designs and we are keeping our custom flight-control, active thermography post-processing, and crack measurement code secret. Astria is proven, patented, and protected.

Our aerial platform is poised to enter the commercial market. We have obtained regional testing partnerships with companies and government agencies including a rope-access bridge inspection, a part 135 drone service provider, a powerline engineering firm, as well as county and state bridge inspectors. These companies can use our drone to inspect US infrastructure because our drone is made entirely in Idaho out of almost entirely US components. We are actively pursuing a Blue-UAS certification: a cybersecurity validation by the Department of Defense to streamline sale to and use of drones by the US government. We are pushing towards initial tests of our prototype with our partners and then will transition Astria into a commercial product.

Our Business Model 

Our go-to-market strategy leverages our customer’s desire to test our drone. Everyone we have asked if we could beta-test with them wanted to! After showing off our drone in the field, we plan to offer a three-tiered subscription model. For a premium, we will fly Astria for the customer on their job site. This makes it easy to leverage the capability quickly without any training. However, we expect the majority of customers to purchase a drone subscription, which includes hardware, training, basic software, and unlimited flight hours. We’ll also offer additional software packages to post-process and manage collected data, as well as a repair center for customer drones to make it easy to keep them flying. For large customers, we will provide an enterprise solution with a dedicated account manager and adaptations specific to that customer’s needs. The subscription model makes it easy for new customers to obtain the capability without a large upfront capital expenditure and allows us to update and improve our product for existing clients.

Help us get off the ground: improve inspection safety with precision

We are raising seed funding to transition our aerial inspection platform aircraft from development to a commercial product. In the next 5 years, our goal is to have a mature product produced in Idaho, and several hundred drone leases. Once we’ve successfully disrupted the inspection space, we plan to move into industrial maintenance, aerospace inspection, and defense. Join us to help keep inspection climbers and aerial lineman safe and simultaneously increase the safety of U.S. infrastructure.

Possible Tax Free Capital Gains: 

Under certain circumstances this investment constitutes Qualified Small Business Stock and certain investors need not pay capital gains on stock held more than five years. Learn more about U.S. Code 1202 here. 

^{This is not legal advice and investors should consult a tax professional to ensure that they qualify.}