The TechJect Dragonfly
For hundreds of years, man has looked to the sky to fly like the birds. Early flying designs were either impractical, while others were simply ahead of their times. But Nature still holds its dominance with insects with their aggressive flying, amazing endurance & efficiency, leaving behind even the toughest and strongest Fighter Jets of our time.
The TechJect Dragonfly is a lightweight robotic insect that collects and relays information while flying like a bird or hovering like an insect. Our inspiration comes from one insect in particular.. the Dragonfly! It's the king of them all.. the top of its food chain and the fiercest predator in the sky, with unmatched flight performance in the insect world. This means you can do amazing aerial photography, spy on people, secure your house or use it as the next Gen Gaming Platform. We understand how camouflage and customization is so important for user applications, so we’ve made the dragonfly such that every user can choose their own colors.
The dragonfly gets smaller and smaller with each iteration while enhancing its performance; something physically impossible for all the other flying systems! The research behind the Dragonfly began with a million dollar grant from the US Air Force. The Dragonfly has been developed at Georgia Tech, as a joint effort between researchers, PhDs, and professors from multiple universities across the world.
Is this an Insect!? You have to hold one to believe it!
What you have is the world’s FIRST Aerial Photography tool that’s efficient, user friendly and you can take it in your pocket wherever you go! Unlike most other flying vehicles, the dragonfly is highly modular. You can upgrade all the elements of the robot insect through our website, from actuators, to wings, to electronics and many more.
Technology Evolution - Multi-Disciplinary Design
Hovering / Gliding Design
The TechJect Dragonfly comes in three variants: The first design has been evolved towards gliding and flight resembling small aircrafts. The second variant captures a balanced flight pattern, combining both hovering like helicopters/quadcopter, while being able to transition to aircraft like flying at will. The third design has been developed towards aggressive fliying, as craved by gamers, hobbyists, researchers in urban navigation.
Aerodynamics
The dragonfly has been designed keeping aerodynamics of insect flight in mind. Computational Fluid Dynamics, Finite Element Analysis and more have been carried out to ensure the robot is able to match the user's requirememts.
Mechanics and Engineering
The Dragonfly has 5 Technology Patents on its design, ranging from flight controls to actuation. The design is truly unique, letting us upgrade and match new requirements while taking the best from nature. The mechanical parts have been designed to be super-compact, highly efficient and strong. We can tailor the design to user-defined specifics or let users choose them as they like.
Avionics and Electronics
Modularity has been expanded to include various flight control systems. At present three different electronics packages, ranging from Basic flight control using gyroscopes and accelerometers to more advanced packages which include GPS, High Definition Video, Multiple cameras and Wireless communication. The packages are the lightest in the world, going from 3 grams, up to 5 grams, weighing less than a quarter and are all smaller than a stick of gum.
Biological Inspiration and Design
We believe in making engineering truly fit in with your environment. The inspiration for the Dragonfly Robot comes from nature but has been rigorously customized with state of the art engineering solutions. The TechJect Dragonfly is truly uniqe in its looks; it fits in with your environment seamlessly and can be customized or upgraded as you go along.
Modular Concept
The TechJect Dragonfly is highly modular. You can make it faster and more dynamic for gaming, or higher endurance and more stable for aerial photography. We provide SDKs for users to customize as they go along and upgrade their Dragonflies through our future online smart mart. The smart mart will let you create your dragonfly before we shipt it out to you.
Materials and Manufacturing
The Dragonfly has been made using top of the line engineering and manufacturing processes. It uses high tolerance CNC and EDM molds to produce the smallest and lightest parts; all seamlessly working together to make the robot drone operate like real insects. The electronics are manufactured using state of the art automated machines, while the plastics are engineered chosen from leading manufacturers to get the best product possible.
Software and Simulation
With 20 environmental sensors, cameras and GPS capabilities, it can be developed to track athletes, outdoor events or integrated with an App as a fun way to plot or retrace a day of skiing, hiking or whatever you like. All Dragonfly units come Ready to Fly out of the box and we offer all SDK to take your already awesome flying insect to the next level. The system is quite user-friendly to work with – it can be flown RC, or can be controlled using an iPad, smartphone or computer.
