Swiss Startup Launches Software to Make Drones Dramatically Safer

With 60 employees and a total funding amount of more than CHF20 million, Verity Studios is already very successful. Founded in 2014, the company has extensive experience in the creation of spectacular drone shows. The company now steps into the software business by launching an integration program for their Failsafe technology for quadcopters. The patented Failsafe solution provides powerful and cost-effective safety enhancements to any consumer and commercial quadcopter drone platform. “The failsafe technologies developed by Verity’s exceptional team were the main trigger for our investment. We are delighted and determined to support Verity in making this technology widely available”, comments Matthieu Repellin, Investment Partner, Airbus Ventures.

The vast majority of consumer and commercial drones in operation today are quadrotors, which have been widely adopted due to their overall efficiency. While many technological innovations have been developed to improve the aircrafts’ operational safety, such as “return to home” features and automatic obstacle avoidance, the majority of technical failures today are caused by a failure in the propulsion system (i.e., the loss of a motor controller, a motor, or a propeller). This is a technological challenge that even the largest companies in the drone industry have not solved. Against conventional engineering analysis, the team at Verity has now proven the ability to safely control and land a quadrotor after a loss of one, or even two, of its propulsion systems with an algorithm-only solution.

Verity’s Failsafe provides the first line of defense against propulsion system failures at little to no cost to the consumer, significantly increasing the safety and reliability of any quadrotor. When a Failsafe-enabled drone has a propulsion system failure, instead of spinning out of control and crashing to the ground, the drone stays in the air, stabilizing itself using sophisticated algorithms. It can then be safely navigated to an appropriate landing location. This type of disaster mitigation has never been achieved or implemented by manufacturers, forcing customers to pay for expensive retrofit systems, like parachutes, in an attempt to make their drones safer.

Verity’s Failsafe algorithm can be implemented into existing quadcopters flying in the air today through a simple firmware update. This code-based solution requires no additional hardware and adds no weight to the system, making it the lowest cost and highest efficiency risk-mitigation feature currently on the market. Verity is now offering its Failsafe algorithm to any drone manufacturer through custom integration.

“I’ve seen enough drones from every major brand fall out of the sky due to a propulsion system failure to know that if we can solve this issue with a simple firmware update, drone manufacturers should be jumping at the opportunity to implement Verity’s Failsafe algorithm”, comments Colin Guinn, Founder of Guinn Partners, former CEO of DJI North America.