Assessment of technical and commercial feasibility of a novel low-cost and ultra-efficient electric drive technology for Drone Delivery Systems

While the COVID-19 pandemic is creating a major drag on the global economy, it's helping to accelerate the development and commercialisation of several emerging technologies that reduce human-to-human contact, automate processes and increase productivity amid social distancing. Electric drones are among those technologies and considered as enabling technologies for the current and future of the Drone Package Delivery market with huge market growth anticipated by 2030\.

Camvertec has developed a novel drive technology with brushless operation and a fractionally-rated converter, providing a robust, low-cost and low-maintenance drive solution, cutting the overall capital cost by 35-35%. The drive is built from inexpensive materials, i.e.copper and iron, and is manufactured using standard manufacturing methods.Its novel electromagnetic and controller design eliminate the use of permanent magnets (no demagnetisation issues) leading to significant increase in drive's reliability index.In addition, Camvertec's unique and patent-pending light-weight rotor design has enabled the drive weight to be lowered by 30% compared to BLDC motors currently being considered for drones powertrain.

This project aims to study, assess and prove the commercial feasibility of Camvertec drive technology for electric drone delivery systems and set the foundation for commercialisation operation to move to the next phase. This project will scale up the laboratory-proven prototype design to a real size, fully optimised and characterised prototype design with its performance and economics quantified with respect to cost, size, reliability and efficiency.