Dronamics applications could
well be the shape of the future
shape of the drone.”
A further reason to believe
that the time has come for
the cargo drone, he says, is
that automation is becoming
more common in aviation.
“Almost all European airports
have automated systems in
place now. There are lots of
automated landings, especially
in poor visibility, so it’s already
a trusted part of aviation,”
Rangelov adds.
At its full-scale, expected to
launch by the end of the year,
the Black Swan will have a
wingspan of 16 metres and be
capable of carrying up to 350
kilogrammes over distances
of 2,500 kilometres at 200
kilometres an hour. The drones
have petrol engines that can
be serviced almost anywhere
and are able to fly for 12
hours at a time. Dronamics is
designing standardised “drone
ports”, complete with cameras,
landing areas and antennae.
The idea for this novel form of transport all
began with cheese...
with Konstantin’s former aerospace professors. It earned their
approval and they began putting together a team of researchers
that included former workers from NASA, Boeing and Airbus.
The project attracted investors, including €550,000 from the
Bulgarian business angel Boyko Iaramov. The Black Swan
prototype won first place at Vienna’s Pioneers Festival and IATA
agreed to become Dronamics’ global strategic partner.
The brothers are now negotiating with e-commerce
companies, forwarders and airlines with a view to swiftly
integrating the drones with supply chains once regulators
give the green light. Dronamics is in discussions with several
companies in both Europe and sub-Saharan Africa that could
each require hundreds of drones. If all goes to plan, the brothers
are looking to expand quickly into Asia, Northern Africa, Latin
America and Oceania. Rangelov believes that it is a realistic goal
to manufacture 1,000 vehicles a year as soon as 2021. Each one
will cost around €90,000, a far more affordable price tag than
a conventional freighter aircraft. The costs are kept down by
using composite materials and off-the-shelf components for the
autonomous flight systems.
The Boeing CAV
Boeing’s autonomous cargo air vehicle is part of its Boeing NeXt
portfolio of innovative vehicles. Rather than a petrol engine,
They could be installed at rural
airfields, but the drones can
land on almost any surface,
including rougher terrain in
developing countries. “All you
do is pre-programme them
with a destination and activate
the flight. The algorithm does
the rest and it will get from
A to B autonomously in the
quickest possible way,” he says.
The role of cheese
Rangelov co-founded
Dronamics in 2014 with
his brother Konstantin, an
aerospace engineer. The idea
for a middle-distance drone
began as a thought experiment
about how to get their
favourite Bulgarian cheese
to Delft, in the Netherlands,
where one of them was
working. The brothers knew
that small drones were not
capable of long-range flights,
so they came up with their
own design and checked it
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