Hatch Duo is proud to have been part of the design and engineering development of Rizse’s Dragunfly drone platform. This isn’t just any drone—Rizse is an advanced AI robotics company revolutionizing aircraft inspections. Very proud of the team as we collaborated to encapsulate a state of the art lidar system and high precision camera to empower technicians working in the commercial airline industry.
Rizse is a fully autonomous drone system designed to streamline the future of aircraft inspection. It performs ten times faster than the typical manual fuselage inspection process, and with greater accuracy/consistency. It retains data from prior assessments and utilizes artificial intelligence in damage detection systems to learn from the expertise of aircraft inspectors.
The airline market is a $209 Billion dollar industry, and Rizse has already been in talks with a few of the largest commercial airlines for fleet orders. Hatch Duo’s role was to get Rizse off the ground as a venture to garner strategic partnerships and funding, through a demonstrable working design.
Rizse was not a cosmetic only project by any means. The product not only had to look good, but it also had to FLY and maintain a prolonged flight time for a complete inspection. The weight of lidar technology was a constant challenge throughout the design process. We went through countless iterations to reduce the weight. Part of that obstacle was solved by innovating on a lattice design for the propeller guards. We looked at aviation hangars, and the Buckminster Fuller-like structures inside, to influence our design language.
Rizse partnered with us to take their basic breadboard MVP, and evolve it into a commercialized design ready for fleet production and deployment. We worked on a very differentiated industrial design, precise product engineering, DFA/DFM, and initial flight prototype.
Ultimately, our design helped propel Rizse to a position where they could more easily receive more funding, gain key advisors, as well as garnering key relationships from major commercial airlines to engage with their fleets and technology.
Check out our full case study here.
The Hatchery 