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Donecle is a
Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...
-based
aircraft manufacturer An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology industry. ...
which develops autonomous
aircraft An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...
inspection
UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Drone ...
s. The company offers single UAVs and swarms of UAVs to visually inspect the exterior of
airliner An airliner is a type of airplane for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. The modern and most common variant of the airliner is a long, tube shaped, and jet powered aircraft. The largest ...
s. Autonomous navigation of the UAVs is based on laser positioning technology. UAVs take pictures of the aircraft with
high resolution Image resolution is the level of detail of an image. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. "Higher resolution" means more image detail. Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Resolution quantifies ...
camera A camera is an instrument used to capture and store images and videos, either digitally via an electronic image sensor, or chemically via a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. As a pivotal technology in the fields of photograp ...
s.
Image processing An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a pr ...
and
machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...
algorithms analyse the images. The system then provides a diagnostic of the aircraft surface to a qualified inspector, who reviews the images and validates or refutes the provided analysis. The company works with
airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers or freight (cargo). Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines ...
s such as
Air France Industries Air France (; legally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and is one of the founding members ...
-
KLM KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, or simply KLM (an abbreviation for their official name Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V. , ),
and
aircraft manufacturer An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology industry. ...
s such as
Dassault Aviation Dassault Aviation SA () is a French Aerospace manufacturer, manufacturer of military aircraft and business jets. It was founded in 1929 by Marcel Dassault, Marcel Bloch as Société des Avions Marcel Bloch (Marcel Bloch Aircraft Company). After ...
and is one of the players in the field of aeronautical maintenance automation.


History


Background

Aircraft manufacturers, such as
Airbus Airbus SE ( ; ; ; ) is a Pan-European aerospace corporation. The company's primary business is the design and manufacturing of commercial aircraft but it also has separate Airbus Defence and Space, defence and space and Airbus Helicopters, he ...
,
Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...
and
ATR ATR may refer to: Medicine * Acute transfusion reaction * Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3 related, a protein involved in DNA damage repair Science and mathematics * Advanced Test Reactor, nuclear research reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, ...
, and certification bodies, such as the
Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...
(FAA) and the
European Aviation Safety Agency The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is an agency of the European Commission with responsibility for civil aviation safety in the European Union. It carries out certification, regulation and standardisation and also performs inve ...
(EASA), require regular visual inspections of the entire external surface of the aircraft to assess the condition of their structures. About 80% of the required inspections are visual. All aircraft are visually inspected prior to each flight, as part of scheduled maintenance operations and after unplanned events such as a
lightning strike A lightning strike or lightning bolt is a lightning event in which an electric discharge takes place between the atmosphere and the ground. Most originate in a cumulonimbus cloud and terminate on the ground, called cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning ...
, hail storm or other possible external damage. One possible solution to improve the
traceability Traceability is the capability to trace something. In some cases, it is interpreted as the ability to verify the history, location, or application of an item by means of documented recorded identification. Other common definitions include the capa ...
of these operations and reduce costs is the robotization of aeronautical maintenance and its visual inspections. In January 2013, the French research and development project
Air-Cobot Air-Cobot (''A''ircraft ''I''nspection enhanced by sma''R''t & ''C''ollaborative r''OBOT'') is a French research and development project of a wheeled collaborative mobile robot able to inspect aircraft during maintenance operations. This multi- ...
began to develop a collaborative mobile robot capable of inspecting an aircraft during maintenance operations. Carried out by the Akka Technologies group, this multi-partner project involved research laboratories and companies, including Airbus. In 2014, in partnership with the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, the British airline
easyJet EasyJet plc (styled as easyJet) is a British multinational low-cost airline group headquartered at London Luton Airport. It operates domestic and international scheduled services on 927 routes in more than 34 countries via its affiliate airlin ...
became interested in drones guided by technicians to reduce the inspection time of aircraft fuselages.


Foundation

After thirteen years in the design offices of the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus on the
A400M The Airbus A400M AtlasNamed after the Greek mythological figure. is a European four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft. It was designed by Airbus Military, now Airbus Defence and Space, as a tactical airlifter with strategic capab ...
and
A350 The Airbus A350 is a flight length, long-range, wide-body twin-engine airliner developed and produced by Airbus. The initial A350 design proposed in 2004, in response to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, would have been a development of the Airbu ...
aircraft with metal and
composite material A composite or composite material (also composition material) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or physical properties and are merged to create a ...
s, Yann Bruner, an engineer at
Mines ParisTech Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging *Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun M ...
with a PhD in Mechanics and Materials, noted that maintenance inspection reports are often incomplete for various reasons such as missing photographs, missing information, or illegible handwriting. He considered the use of drones to perform the inspection automatically. He contacted Matthieu Claybrough, who was involved in UAV projects at the
Institut supérieur de l'aéronautique et de l'espace The Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (, ISAE-SUPAERO; ) is a French ''grande école'' of engineering, founded in 1909. It is the world's first dedicated institute of aerospace engineering. ISAE-SUPAERO is part of University ...
. A graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, Claybrough has a specialization in innovation management,
aeronautics Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design process, design, and manufacturing of air flight-capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. While the term originally referred ...
and
control theory Control theory is a field of control engineering and applied mathematics that deals with the control system, control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the applic ...
. uploaded by
MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...
, 26 April 2016. Retrieved 27 August 2017
For three years he worked on the design of
automatic pilot An autopilot is a system used to control the path of a vehicle without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator's control of the vehicle, allow ...
s for aircraft, including helicopters for Thales Avionics, an
avionics Avionics (a portmanteau of ''aviation'' and ''electronics'') are the Electronics, electronic systems used on aircraft. Avionic systems include communications, Air navigation, navigation, the display and management of multiple systems, and the ...
supplier. Two other partners joined them in the project. The first was Josselin Bequet, a graduate of the
École supérieure de commerce de Paris ESCP Business School (; ) is a French business school and ''grande école'' founded in Paris and based across Europe with campuses in Paris, Berlin, London, Madrid, Turin, and Warsaw. Established in 1819, it is considered the world's oldest busi ...
(ESCP Europe) and the
City, University of London City, University of London was a public university from 1966 to 2024 in London, England. It merged with St George's, University of London to form City St George's, University of London in August 2024. The names "City, University of London" an ...
who specializes in management and finance. The second was Alban Deruaz-Pepin, who graduated from the
Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace The Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (, ISAE-SUPAERO; ) is a French ''grande école'' of engineering, founded in 1909. It is the world's first dedicated institute of aerospace engineering. ISAE-SUPAERO is part of University ...
(ISAE-SUPAERO) and specializes in computer science and control theory, and holds a
private pilot license A private pilot licence (PPL) or private pilot certificate is a type of pilot licence that allows the holder to act as pilot in command of an aircraft privately (not for remuneration). The basic licence requirements are determined by the Inter ...
. They founded the startup, Donecle, in September 2015 and developed an automated inspection procedure for aircraft with a swarm of UAVs. In June of That same year they presented their concept at the
Paris Air Show The Paris Air Show (, ''Salon du Bourget'') is a trade fair and air show held in odd years at Paris–Le Bourget Airport in France. Organized by the French aerospace industry's primary representative body, the ''Groupement des industries frança ...
.


Product

Although regulations and weather make it difficult to use UAVs in airspace near airports, Donecle developed a product that works both indoors and outdoors, using a laser positioning system for its UAVs. During the autonomous flight, cameras mounted on the UAVs photograph the exterior surface of the aircraft. Algorithms analyse the images and provide a diagnostic report about the aircraft surface. A human operator chooses a flight plan for the required inspection and a qualified inspector then validates the reports. Compared to human inspections that require scaffolding, inspection of the outer surface of a typical airliner with drones takes about twenty minutes versus six to ten hours and requires one person versus ten to twenty. The cost of taking an aircraft out of service can run at approximately $10,000 per hour, which makes UAV inspection cost effective. Donecle has filed patents for this process.


Development

Inspections use a set of mobile
Internet of Things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...
(IoT) sensors, so at its inception in 2015, Donecle joined the Connected Camp, a
business incubator A business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services, starting with management training and office space, and ending with venture ...
in this field, located in the of
Labège Labège (; ) is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department in the Occitania region in Southwestern France. Geography Labège is a commune in the metropolitan area of Toulouse. Its urban core is located in the southeast suburbs of Toulouse along ...
, a town south-east of Toulouse. The incubator aids the search for funding and provides some common equipment such as
3D printer 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...
s. uploaded by IoT Valley, 30 March 2017. Retrieved 26 August 2017 Donecle is a member of the
Aerospace Valley Aerospace Valley () is a French cluster of aerospace engineering companies and research centres. The cluster is located in the regions of Occitanie and Nouvelle-Aquitaine in the southwest of France and is mainly concentrated in and around the ...
competitiveness cluster, the Robotics Place cluster and the Hardware Club. In October 2016, it became a member of the Starburst Accelerator, the world's largest incubator for aerospace startups. In 2016, the company announced a partnership with the French-Dutch aeronautical maintenance group
Air France Industries Air France (; legally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and is one of the founding members ...
-
KLM KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, or simply KLM (an abbreviation for their official name Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V. , ),
Engineering and Maintenance (AFI-KLM E&M). The UAVs were tested on their aircraft to verify the marking and detection of defects. At the end of this testing and verification phase, AFI-KLM and Donecle planned to jointly deploy the equipment at AFI-KLM E&M maintenance sites. At the end of 2016, DDrone Invest, an investment company controlled by the French company Delta Drone, invested one million euros in Donecle. With this capital injection, the company became a shareholder, alongside the founders. At the Paris Air Show in 2017, the company announced that it was starting to sign its first contracts with air carriers and planned commercial deployment by the end of the year. During the year, the startup was planning to increase its workforce and to attract international clients. In 2018, at the ADS Show, a trade show for aerospace and defense maintenance, Donecle conducted a drone inspection of a
Dassault Rafale The Dassault Rafale (, literally meaning "gust of wind", or "burst of fire" in a more military sense) is a French Twinjet, twin-engine, Canard (aeronautics), canard delta wing, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole fighter aircraft designed and ...
, the French
multirole combat aircraft A multirole combat aircraft (MRCA) is a combat aircraft intended to perform different roles in combat. These roles can include air to air combat, air support, aerial bombing, reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and suppression of air def ...
. In the future, the company intends to offer other types of inspections, such as
quality control Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach plac ...
of exterior paint and the evaluation of
corrosion Corrosion is a natural process that converts a refined metal into a more chemically stable oxide. It is the gradual deterioration of materials (usually a metal) by chemical or electrochemical reaction with their environment. Corrosion engine ...
. Planning is also underway for applications outside aviation, such as
rail transport Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...
,
shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other Watercraft, floating vessels. In modern times, it normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation th ...
and
wind farm A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...
s.


Technologies


Autonomous navigation

The Donecle UAV is a coaxial push-pull octocopter. The UAVs position themselves relative to the aircraft with laser positioning technology. This allows them to operate in enclosed areas, such as
hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...
s, without the need for
geolocation Geopositioning is the process of determining or estimating the geographic position of an object or a person. Geopositioning yields a set of Geographic coordinate system, geographic coordinates (such as latitude and longitude) in a given map datum ...
with
Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide ge ...
(GPS).
Algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...
s compute in real time the position of the UAV relative to the aircraft. The sensors used for autonomous navigation also ensure safe operation, by preventing collisions with aircraft, human personnel and equipment. The navigation plans and the number of UAVs employed in each case depend on the aircraft model to be analyzed. A single UAV is enough for a small airplane while up to six UAVs can be used for an
Airbus A380 The Airbus A380 is a very large wide-body airliner, developed and produced by Airbus until 2021. It is the world's largest passenger airliner and the only full-length double-deck jet airliner. Airbus studies started in 1988, and the pr ...
. As the inspection missions are always the same, the routes are pre-programmed in the software installed on a
tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being computers ...
. A human operator does not need to pilot the UAVs, but only launches the mission and then the UAVs fly autonomously around the aircraft. They normally fly at a distance of one meter from the fuselage.


Visual inspection

The high-resolution cameras mounted on the UAVs photograph the surface of the aircraft.
Image processing An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a pr ...
algorithms perform the first step of detecting any
region of interest A region of interest (often abbreviated ROI) is a sample within a data set identified for a particular purpose. The concept of a ROI is commonly used in many application areas. Existing as a vicinity, or within one. For example, in medical imagin ...
on the fuselage. A second step of classification is then carried out in order to categorize defects (lightning strike, oil leak, scratching, texture irregularity, etc.) versus normal elements of the aircraft (screws, rivets,
pitot tube A pitot tube ( ; also pitot probe) measures fluid flow velocity. It was invented by French engineer Henri Pitot during his work with aqueducts and published in 1732, and modified to its modern form in 1858 by Henry Darcy. It is widely use ...
s, etc.). The recognition algorithm is based on
machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...
from the annotated databases of previous flights. The effectiveness of
deep learning Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that focuses on utilizing multilayered neural networks to perform tasks such as classification, regression, and representation learning. The field takes inspiration from biological neuroscience a ...
algorithms depends on the representativeness and the quantity of examples in each class. Databases suffer from the fact that there is only a small number of defects compared to the huge amount of normal elements present on an aircraft. The defects are, however, the most critical objects to classify. To overcome this difficulty, Donecle has done research to extend image annotations, using classical image processing techniques and
generative adversarial network A generative adversarial network (GAN) is a class of machine learning frameworks and a prominent framework for approaching generative artificial intelligence. The concept was initially developed by Ian Goodfellow and his colleagues in June ...
s. Other alternatives also considered include one-shot learning, which allows learning information about object categories from a single image, or a small number of training images. Diagnostics are provided in real time. Applications include fault detection and quality control of regulatory markings. At the end of the mission, a damage report is sent to a tablet computer with each region of interest and its proposed classification. The algorithm returns a confidence rate on its diagnosis. An inspector reviews at the images and validates or refutes the diagnostics.


Operational testing

The company's drone were employed in operational tests by
Austrian Airlines Austrian Airlines AG, often shortened to Austrian or AUA, is the flag carrier of Austria and a subsidiary of Lufthansa, the flag carrier of Germany. The airline is headquartered on the grounds of Vienna International Airport in Schwechat where i ...
in September 2019.


Awards and recognition

The startup and its founders have received the following awards: * 2016 Jean-Louis Gerondeau - Zodiac Aerospace award given by the foundation of the école polytechnique * 2016 Galaxie Grand Prize by Galaxie club * 2016
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
Innovators under 35 France, organized by
MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...
* 2016 Young Engineer award - Technology and Aerospace by Norbert Ségard Foundation * 2016 La Tribune
BNP Paribas BNP Paribas (; sometimes referred to as BNPP or BNP) is a French multinational universal bank and financial services holding company headquartered in Paris. It was founded in 2000 from the merger of two of France's foremost financial instituti ...
Young Entrepreneur award in the "start category" * 2016 Start me up first Innovation contest, organized by the
Crédit Agricole Crédit Agricole Group (), sometimes called La banque verte (, , due to its historical ties to farming), is a French international banking group and the world's largest cooperative financial institution. It is the second largest bank in France, ...
Toulouse 31 * 2016 Trophy of Innovation of the Aeromart business convention * 2017 Special Jury Award of French national competition for outdoor robotics * 2017 Disruptive Strategy Award in the startup category for the Grand-Sud region * 2018 Grand Prize of the 37th Inn'Ovations regional competition in the Midinnov show * 2020
Aviation Week Network The Aviation Week Network is a New York–based B2B publishing and event production company owned by Informa. The company was owned and published by McGraw-Hill until it was purchased by Penton Media in 2013. It was then bought by Informa in 201 ...
Laureate in the
maintenance, repair and overhaul Aircraft maintenance is the performance of tasks required to ensure the continuing airworthiness of an aircraft or aircraft part, including overhaul, inspection, replacement, defect rectification, and the embodiment of modifications, compliance ...
category


See also

*
Aircraft maintenance checks Aircraft maintenance checks are periodic inspections that have to be done on all commercial and civil aircraft after a certain amount of time or usage. Military aircraft normally follow specific maintenance programmes which may, or may not, be si ...
*
UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Drone ...
*
Air-Cobot Air-Cobot (''A''ircraft ''I''nspection enhanced by sma''R''t & ''C''ollaborative r''OBOT'') is a French research and development project of a wheeled collaborative mobile robot able to inspect aircraft during maintenance operations. This multi- ...


References


External links

* {{Official website, http://www.donecle.com/ Companies based in Occitania (administrative region) French companies established in 2015 Industrial robots Maintenance Nondestructive testing Robotics companies Robots of France