SubscribePrioria's Micro Robot Surveillance Plane Launches Like A Dart
It sounds like something we’ve all seen in sci-fi movies, a tiny, unmanned plane small enough to launch like a dart, monitoring a battlefield, border, or critical facility. Prioria’s “Maveric,” a micro air vehicle weighing less than a pound, is making this particular sci-fi idea a reality.
Prioria is one of 40 innovative technology companies that will present at the second annual Southeast Venture Conference in Tysons Corner, VA, Feb. 27-28.
Prioria, founded in 2003 has 25 employees and is hiring engineers and designers. It expects to hire up to 30 people this year. It raised an undisclosed amount in a first round in 2006 from Gulf Shore Capital of Naples, FL, after bootstrapping for its first few years. The company seeks from $3 million to $5 million in venture backing now.
“What Prioria does really well,” says CEO and founder Bryan de Frota, “are embedded systems for robotic, autonomous and sensing applications.” The company has a close relationship with the University of Florida’s Micro air vehicle lab.
Unmanned Aerial Reconnaissance Vehicles
Fits in six-inch tube
The military uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to fly hundreds of reconnaissance missions each day. UAVs range from the size of a commercial passenger aircraft to very small micro air vehicles (MAVs) weighing less than a pound. The Pentagon plans to expand the use of MAVs, which can be deployed in less time and at a significantly lower cost compared with traditional UAVs.
Prioria, leveraging technology licensed from the University of Florida at Gainesville and its own development work has created a MAV with foldable wings that’s small enough to fit in a six-inch diameter tube. A single soldier can carry and launch the vehicle like a dart.
“You don’t need a pilot,” explains de Frota. “You throw it like a dart and the plane goes into pre-programmed behavior.”
Intelligent UAV
Current UAVs cumbersome
Prioria’s onboard computer and sensors tells the plane how to fly, avoid obstacles and accurately track objects. The onboard intelligent systems differentiate the Prioria plane from others on the market. Although Prioria originally designed Maveric to showcase its electronics, the company soon discovered it met key needs of militaries worldwide.
Current UAVs, de Frota notes, “Are cumbersome and require a lot of people to use.” Several years ago, the Pentagon said it wanted a micro UAV that could be used at the squad level without requiring a special operator or setup time, a tool one soldier could use to provide valuable battlefield information—pretty much what Prioria created.
Rugged, beefy design
Other systems require at least two people to carry and operate and require assembly. “Just from the ready to go standpoint, the Maveric is light-years ahead,” says de Frota.
The plane carries a nose camera and a belly cam on a gamble that provides a 360-degree field of view, again, an advance on current UAVs, which generally have a single forward-looking cam or fixed belly cam.
The complex obstacle avoidance software will make such planes useful in urban conflict environments such as Bagdad, de Frota notes. He adds, “If you do all the embedded processing to solve tough problems, there are other things you can do with it.” That includes target tracking, he says.
“A user can click on a target of interest, a vehicle, person, tank, and the plane can loiter around it, follow it or execute a number of other behaviors. As we work on it, the plane will be able to go out and find pre-defined targets, and sends data back to the ground station where it asks whether the target is or is not of interest. There’s a human in the loop, but you have a very useful tool.”
Rugged UAV
Market estimated at $55 billion
The plane’s “beefy” design means it is also rugged enough to fly in high winds, says de Frota. “Our plane is stronger and has more horsepower than most current UAVs. We’ve flown it up to 16,000 feet. There’s a lot of versatility in the system and that’s what we think makes it a phenomenal tool.”
The market for UAVs is estimated at $55 billion over the next ten years.
The company is completing its first two sales now at $150,000 per system. Each system consists of three planes and a ground station.
Other products
The company’s technology for embedding intelligence in devices also works in other products, so far ones Prioria made for clients. Those include a nuclear identification system being tested in the Port of Charleston, SC. If it’s successful, there it will eventually be deployed at all ports, says de Frota.
The company also designed an explosion detection device being used by authorities in Colorado and California.
Its cancer treatment device control system, used to freeze-treat esophageal cancer, is in use throughout the United States.
Next, the company wants to get is electronics in other makers’ UAVs and is talking to the Army, Navy and Air Force and different manufacturers now about a process of integration.
“We’re also taking this embedded processing platform and finding other homes for it. We have one application that uses radar processing. There are lots of different places it could go,” says de Frota.
