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Lidar Technology :

Rizse employs state-of-the-art lidar technology and high precision camera, allowing data to be collected efficiently and consistently. We helped Rizse hint at this by implementing a clear underbelly and wave pattern to connotate “sensing.” Additionally, we designed the drone with bright neon CMF(color material and finish) for collision touchpoints in the propeller guards and landing gear. As a business-to-business (B2B) product in an enterprise setting, Hatch Duo took a different approach from the typical consumer aesthetics. While acknowledging this was a more industrial environment (airplane hangars), we still wanted Rizse’s drone to stand out from the crowd; especially if they were purchased in fleets.

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Dragonfly Design:

With Rizse’s “all-seeing” lidar technology to navigate and inspect around a plane, we took inspiration from the parallel in form and function of Dragonfly. From its large eyes to its ability to autonomously hover, we felt that a dragonfly was the perfect animorphic form that meshed well with the form factors of the Rizse drone.

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A Feat of Engineering

Our engineering team had multiple challenges to design the parts for manufacturing and maintain design intent while making sure this large drone would fly. Some of us had designed consumer drones before, but those small tiny things do not pose the same challenge as a drone meant to inspect aerospace aircraft. Ultimately, the engineers rose to the challenge. Through multiple working revisions on prototypes, they came up with a prototype that could fly and reflected directly back to the industrial design intent.

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Industrial Weightlessness :

Rizse was not a cosmetic only project by any means. The product not only had to look good, but it also had to FLY and maintain a prolonged flight time for a complete inspection. The weight of lidar technology was a constant challenge throughout the design process. We went through countless iterations to reduce the weight. Part of that obstacle was solved by innovating on a lattice design for the propeller guards. We looked at aviation hangars, and the Buckminster Fuller-like structures inside, to influence our design language.

These fundamental elements helped us reduce the weight of the drone, enabling us to make the drone light so that it could be powered on a battery and fly around in 22 minutes with one battery swap for a full inspection. The lattice approach achieved several things: it was a rigid protective structure that had some give to protect the propellers, it lightened the load of what otherwise would have been solid the propeller guards, and lastly, it related back to the brand and form language of the hangars themselves, which bonded product to the contextual environment.Ultimately, our design helped propel Rizse to a position where they could more easily receive more funding, gain key advisors, as well as garnering key relationships from major commercial airlines to engage with their fleets and technology. More information can be found here: www.rizse.io

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