So, fanless blimps are nice safe indoor drones, no?

Another option is to encase the rotors, so the drone isn't a flying menace.

This year Cleo Robotics has released a bi-rotor ducted fan, just the thing for indoor coptering!

They get points for the name, too:  "Dronut".

As far as I can tell, this little guy can do anything a similar size quadcopter might do, with a lot less scary buzzsaw vibe.

Comparing the Dronut with a fanless blimp, it looks like the sensors and control systems are more or less comparable.  They both are designed for indoor use—no wind, lots of sensitive stuff all around.

Now, a little blimp will be a lot slower, but a lot quieter than Dronut, and, I bet, the blimp has a longer time in the air.  But the Dronut is not only faster, but also looks highly maneuverable compared to a fanless blimp.

So these represent different capabilities, or different parts of the space of indoor droniness.

  1. Cleo. Introducing Dronut(R) X1. 2021, https://cleorobotics.com/product/.

Robot Wednesday