DronStore: Indoor drones with vision and AI for incident monitoring

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ALTER participates in this project that develops indoor drones with vision and artificial intelligence for incident monitoring. DronStore is the name of this project, which develops a navigation system responsible for localization, control, and path planning, enabling the drone to fly autonomously without needing a pilot.

This is an innovative, collaborative initiative involving six entities: Logistic Inventory Services, Dronomy, ALTER, Stimulo, IOVI, and Secpho as the coordinator. Additionally, it has the collaboration of PCAMI (Park and Supply Centre of Army Material Intendancy), one of the main logistic supply centers in our country. It is a project that has benefited from the Next Generation EU funds channelled through the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Tourism as part of the support program for Innovative Business Associations.

When discussing using drones in logistics management, the first association that comes to mind is delivery vehicles. However, they need to perform inventory management functions, and we are already starting to see initial applications in the prototype phase. The idea for the future is that drones can perform all kinds of tasks, such as inspecting high areas, locating items, and more. If successfully developed, these applications have direct advantages for the industry, such as reduced lead times, task automation, cost reduction, and improved security. However, there are also certain barriers to entry or difficulties that arise in their installation and use, such as strict and inconsistent regulations, high costs, limited autonomy, and limitations due to the immaturity of some necessary technologies.

The DronStore industrial research project focuses on these limitations and aims to develop an autonomous navigation prototype for incident monitoring in logistic warehouses. The success of this project will help position the Spanish industry as a reference in this field. Thus, the project poses the challenge of using different technologies applied in a pilot drone solution to implement a fleet of these drones in a new logistics base in Córdoba in the future. The key points for improving and automating logistics in this centre are security and maintenance through warehouse element inspection, sensitization for temperature control in ration storage, and stock control (coding and inventory).

Therefore, for developing a drone capable of fulfilling the defined objectives, there are various technological challenges, including autonomous navigation, inspection systems, and information management system. The proposed navigation system will be responsible for localization, control, and path planning, allowing the drone to fly autonomously without the need for a pilot and thus automating the process.

Presentation of the DRONSTORE project

This project developed an indoor autonomous drone with vision and artificial intelligence to monitor incidents in logistics warehouses.

This project was presented at Koonstel, the first professional metaverse of technological innovation. It was a collaborative innovative initiative involving the companies Air Drone Logistics, Dronomy, Alter Technology, Stimulo, IOVI and secpho.

In this session, the results of this project were shared with the industrial community, through a virtual event in which the details of the project were disclosed, connected with other industry professionals and the advantages of this new solution were discovered. A virtual drone race was even held!