Tag Archives: drone concept

This sleek drone fits in your pocket and transforms uses its magnetic modular design!

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The rise of drone photography and videography has opened the door to plenty of technological and design advancements. Likewise, with the rise of social media, drones have seen some major improvements across the board, spanning from obstacle avoidance to camera quality and speed. Adding portability to the list, industrial designer Kendal Toerner conceptualized Xenon Drone, a handheld and modular drone designed for the most rugged of adventures.

Xenon Drone was first designed for the drone videographer looking for a drone that’s as durable as it is portable. Noticing the lack of handheld and high-quality drones on the market, Toerner sought to balance functionality and space. Broken down into three pieces, Xenon Drone is made from recyclable, plant-based thermoplastic and features a magnetic launching pad wedged between two drone modules. To communicate Xenon’s portability and simplicity, Toerner designed the drone to be versatile in its assembly, resulting in three different possible forms for flying and stacking achieved via magnetic connectors.

Getting Xenon Drone out of your hands and into the sky is simple—users need only attach the two drone modules at their center magnetic grooves, connect their propellers, and let it fly. One end of each module contains the chunk of embedded electronic wiring; the other end holds Xenon Drone’s triple-axis gimbal camera and batteries. But, while getting it up in the air is exciting, Toerner didn’t lose sight of the importance of a safe landing. Embedded with ultrasonic sensors, Xenon Drone depends on a magnetic landing wand to guide its safe descent—by raising the magnetic wand, Xenon Drone can land safely no matter where it flies from.

Users can also control Xenon Drone’s route from their smartphones using an elastic joystick controller that can adapt to almost any smartphone. From your smartphone, Xenon Drone’s joystick controller displays the drone’s altitude, distance, and velocity, as well as the haptic joystick and pan controls. In addition, integrated GPS technology and Bluetooth connectivity allow users to locate Xenon Drone wherever it lands.

Designer: Kendall Toerner

Broken down into two parts, each module of the Xenon Drone attaches at its magnetic center.

A launching pad was wedged between the two modules to ensure an effective takeoff.

Embedded magnetic springs pluck out to deploy each drone module.

After the two modules connect, propellers are attached before Xenon can take flight.

Xenon’s magnetic connector.

Users need only attach the two modules and connect their respective propellers.

A magnetic landing wand guides Xenon in a safe descent.

An elastic joystick controller allows users to choose Xenon’s route.

“By modulating an electromagnetic force on your fingertip, the flat surface of the controller feels just like a joystick. The further from the center, the more resistance. This allows for eyes-off flying, mitigating finger-drifting issues,” Toerner notes.

“Using the onboard transceiver, GPS, and Bluetooth, the exact location of the two drone parts is always known even when they separate.”

“A camera with a triple-axis gimbal allows for optical image stabilization and manual panning. Having both a wide-angle and telephoto lens allows for unique options when capturing adventures.”

“A thermoplastic, layer-based circuit board can be decoupled from its components with a hot liquid solvent, allowing for reuse and recycle of almost every part. Xenon is manufactured using renewable energy, plant-based thermoplastic, (recyclable) metal, and can be fully disassembled because it uses fasteners and a removable thermal adhesive.”

This EV charging solution uses a network of charging drones to charge your car anytime, anywhere!

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Every day we move closer to a more sustainable future, and the automobile industry is quickly gaining traction. However, more and more electric vehicles are on the road each day, and drivers feel the heat with the lack of available charging stations. With so many EVs on the road and so few charging stations, many EV drivers admit to feeling anxious during road trips, having to worry about their car dying of charge at any moment. A group of Seoul-based designers hopes to relieve some of that stress with their new EV charging solution called Nebo, a network of charging drones that bring the electric juice directly to EVs.

To ensure their EVs remain charged when traveling, drivers often have to adjust their routes to incorporate charging stops along the way. Cutting out the extra travel time those routes take up, Nebo users can request charging drones to fly to their EV and power up their vehicles on the road. Then, drivers can plug in their destination from a dashboard display, and Nebo will find the quickest route and create a charging schedule for the trip, ensuring that EVs are fully charged. Each charging drone contains electromagnetic and ultrasonic sensors to locate and latch onto the roofs of electric vehicles.

Once securely stationed atop the EV, charging coils transmit power between Nebo and the electric vehicle. The drones would also feature bladeless wings, allowing for a compact build that can slide into itself during use. An accompanying app would also allow users to request Nebo on the go. This would come in handy when your EV is parked, and you want to get some extra charge before taking the car out for a drive.

Since EVs are hitting the roads more than ever before, the need for charging stations is growing. However, considering the lack of charging stations, those who drive electric vehicles have to worry too much about how they will get a charge. To help quell the anxiety felt by drivers of electric vehicles, Nebo brings the charge to drivers using a network of charging drones anytime, anywhere.

Designers: Junpyo Hong, Jayoung Koo, Yang Dong Wook, & Dongjae Koo

Sleek by design and discreet in appearance, Nebo is a charging drone that brings power to EVs on the road.

Electromagnetic and ultrasonic sensors help Nebo locate and latch onto EVs.

An intricate build reveals the vision sensors, charging coils, and bladeless wing system that gives Nebo such a slim body.

When latched onto the EV, Nebo’s wings slide into its body to give it a more compact structure.

























A dashboard display allows users to log trips into Nebo’s GPS technology that creates a charging schedule for each trip.

Vision sensors allow Nebo to track your EV.

An accompanying app allows users to request charging drones on the go.

Nebo charges your EV while you’re driving, cutting out the extra time it takes to find charging stations.

Once your EV is fully charged, Nebo takes off and flies back to its own charging station.

The team of designers created a life-size paper model of Nebo.

This mobile cabin comes with it’s own cargo drone delivery service that saves the local environment from destruction!

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Nowadays, I can’t even keep track of how often I think about traveling. Following the onset of stay-at-home orders, the travel bug seems to have surged in numbers and we’re all daydreaming about getting away from it all. If only we could tie up hundreds of balloons to our roofs so could finally stop talking about travel and just do it. Well, now you can – sort of. Studio SFSO, a San Francisco-based industrial design duo, noticed the increased urge to travel as well as social media’s role in promoting tourism and conceptualized a new travel experience that transports mobile cabins to uncharted territories with help from delivery cargo drones.

Known for their often bulbous and quirky home designs, Studio SFSO now turns to travel for inspiration. Studio SFSO’s mobile cabin delivery service aims to help mitigate the unfortunate byproducts of overtourism like land degradation and wasteful construction activities. In addition to these preexisting problems, the COVID-19 pandemic has moved many people to either ditch previous travel plans or embrace unsafe modes of travel. In order to offer their own solution to these problems, Studio SFSO’s mobile cabin delivery service incorporates the use of drone technology to first transport prefabricated holiday cabins to unique, faraway places and then, once that travel itch has been scratched, send the mobile cabins back to the user’s home in their respective city. This mode of travel from Studio SFSO promotes nonintrusive tourism that protects the environment and won’t disrupt the local community’s way of life.

To get the whole holiday started, users will decide on a single location from a map made available by the delivery service’s accompanying app and reserve that location as the chosen delivery address for the drone to deliver the prefabricated cabin. After the location is selected, just like how city e-bikes can be returned to any available charging station, the guest’s cabin is picked up from the chosen destination’s closest ‘droneport’ and delivered to the onsite location. All the drone takes care of is the delivery service, so guests will have to unfold and assemble their cabins before enjoying their stay. Once the holidays come to an end, travelers simply fold up their prefabricated cabins and a drone takes care of the rest, bringing it right back to a nearby droneport.

Constructed from a combination of both plastic and wood, the cabins are cuboid boxes that measure 2.2 meters in length, 1.5 meters in width, and 2.2 meters in height. To help reduce overall waste, each cabin collects leftover food and garbage in tanks that leave no trace of tourism behind. Further reducing the problem of waste brought on by tourism, Studio SFSO’s mobile cabin delivery service also delivers pre-cooked meals to guests in a similar fashion to airline dining services. Once the cabin reaches the chosen destination, additional furniture, blankets, and portable toilets are subsequently delivered. To provide heating, electricity, and water, each cabin is also outfitted with the necessary equipment to provide comfortable stays for safe modern travel.

Designer: Studio SFSO

You won’t see a crazier looking drone.

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Over the past week, a certain type of drone was all over social media. A foldable drone that would open and close like a book. It boasted of a camera too. Well, the Sphere Drone by nepdesign is the big-daddy of that drone. Overwhelmingly pretty, it takes on a more organic shape, giving the drone a sort of alien-ish vibe.

It has an upward facing camera, a downward facing camera, and a series of cameras all around the side. Can it BE more awesome!?

Designer: nepdesign

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