roboloon

Airships for Green Aviation? 🌿 🇪🇺 The aviation industry must transition to more climate friendly operations. Can airships be a significant part of the solution? This is what we discussed today with the members of the European Parliament, Anouk van Brug and Jan-Christoph Oetjen. IMIEU (Institute for Infrastructure, Environment and Innovation) assembled a strong delegation of members from the new airship developers generation. We were accompanied by Dr. Udo Berthold from MITEB, Thomas Laporte from HyLight, Octave Jolimoy (十月) from FLYING WHALES and Ferdinand Meyer from Wolkenflug. Together we demonstrated the large spectrum of possibilities that enable modern airships - from small to huge - to offer more efficient and more environmentally friendly solutions for aerial operations: 🟢 without emitting greenhouse gases 🟢 without emitting high noise levels 🟢 without posing a significant ground risk 💚 and with the elegant charm of friendly giants sailing across our skies Did we succeed or at least create a better awareness for lighter-than-air alternatives to the existing aviation dilemma? We all hope to see that in the growing support of the EU especially with respect to funding opportunities in the coming years.

SPIN-OFF TAKING FLIGHT - roboloon UG fully operational! 🚀 Launching from the University of Stuttgart and super-charged by the EXIST - Existenzgründungen aus der Wissenschaft as well as the Young Innovators program of Start-up BW we founded our own company now. It all started by getting permission for the project “TGU roboloon” at the TTI Technologie-Transfer-Initiative GmbH.   This opened the doors to support from Startup Campus 0711, attract talent from the University of Stuttgart and assemble a strong team of co-founders. Winning Prof. Walter Fichter as our mentor and receiving generous support from all the great people at the Uni Stuttgart iFR enabled us to get down to work and grow our dream. You are curious to find out how airship drones 🚁🎈 can automate your #DDD inspection tasks in energy and mobility? Then let’s talk!

Looking forward to see you there!

We have an exciting new position to offer: A master thesis to explore a new propulsion concept for our airships. The real fun for an engineer is going all the way from a crazy idea to a real thing. And that's exactly what you will do! If you are looking for a master thesis and this is your thing, then you can contact our co-founder Daniel Wibbing or apply through our LinkedIn job posting (link in the comments below).

PUSHING DRONE LIMITS: It Takes an Airship to Impress Netze BW 😎 A few days ago we demonstrated our airship drone to power grid operator Netze BW GmbH. As a hardware startup going through many „build-fail-repeat” cycles, the moment you present your MVP to the first potential customer is quite exciting - to put it mildly. 😅 Katharina Gill, Linda Menger, Jürgen Scholz, and Nicolas M. from Netze BW have been critical observers and asking us a ton of questions: Can you carry heavy payloads? Can you shoot steady images? Will you be stable even in windy conditions? Can you fly pre-programmed way-points? Can you fly from Stuttgart to Freiburg in one go? … and many more. The answer to all these questions was yes! Well, except „Stuttgart to Freiburg”. We are still working on that one. This incredible interest from a business that deploys drones on a very professional level showed us that drone technology has by far not reached its full potential yet. There is a place for airships and the time is now!

A TINY RACING BLIMP WINS BIG 🏆 Our researcher, Mark Summers, designed a tiny airship to compete in this year's Airship Regatta at Design and Engineering of Lighter-Than-Air systems (DELTAs) 2024 in Mumbai, India. Mark came in second, just 2 seconds behind returning champion Raman Verma. This is footage of our best round of timed laps around the course. There is a penalty for hitting the walls, which hurt the result in the first round. So in this round we took it slow and easy. The walls were still hit once, but overall this was our best time. We got a substantial bonus for the unusually small size of our airship, at about 1 meter long and 0.25 meters wide. It was a great event, and it was great to see many new faces in addition to a few old ones. Everyone always helps each other out, and we try to get as many airships flying as possible. 27 teams competed this year, which is a great showing!

Honoring the Legacy of Wolfgang von Zeppelin It is with great sadness that we say farewell to our dear friend and advisor, Wolfgang von Zeppelin. A brilliant engineer at heart, Wolfgang played a pivotal role in the resurgence of Zeppelins in our modern era. His technical expertise and pragmatic approach were invaluable to the world of lighter-than-air technology. To us at roboloon, Wolfgang was the source of decades of airship knowledge. He knew stunning details about their history as well as hidden secrets of the engineering and operations of today’s airships. His dedication to innovation was matched by his humility and grounded nature. Wolfgang’s legacy includes the revival of Zeppelin technology, a testament to his exceptional vision and dedication. His book on Ludwig Dürr, the chief designer of the first Zeppelins, continues to inspire and guide us, reflecting the bravery and adventurous spirit of early airship pioneers. We fondly remember our conversations at the Zeppelin Hangar in Friedrichshafen, where Wolfgang’s passion and insights illuminated the history and future of Zeppelin airships. His wisdom and warmth will be greatly missed, but his contributions will forever soar. May his legacy continue to inspire future generations of engineers and dreamers.

DRONES ❤️ SPACE TECH Why should a drone startup take part in a space challenge? Drones don’t fly in space (yet). But drones and space tech make a very powerful team! 💪🛰️ 🏅 We are really excited that our airship drone solution is a winner of the Prototype Track in the EUSPA - EU Agency for the Space Programme CASSINI Challenges! This overwhelming recognition demonstrates the potential of #EUSpace to create high resolution, real time digital twins of our critical infrastructure in a zero-carbon way. We're grateful for this opportunity to contribute to maintaining our mobility and energy infrastructure and thus help avoid environmental disasters like wildfires and oil spills. 🎉 We also want to congratulate all the other awesome teams and their projects, which you can find here: https://lnkd.in/d3Y7GAHN #cassiniEU Uni Stuttgart iFR, TTI Technologie-Transfer-Initiative GmbH

ICE, ICE, BABY! ⛄ Winter months in Germany have some challenges to offer for airship testing. This time the gloomy weather and the freezing cold created a thin layer of ice all over our prototype. Despite the weight increase and the slightly sagging tail it was still able to fly like a charm. 🔊 Sound on - recommended! 😊

KISSING THE MOON GOOD NIGHT 🌖 When an airship wanders across the sky, it is gentle and calm like a cloud passing by.  You smile and wonder, did it just kiss the moon good night?