Robot Platform Development ProgramRPDP

IACL

Launched 2024

RPDP grew out of IADP, where building sub-scale flying aircraft developed real design and testing skill in unmanned systems. That capability has since been contracted out to other developers. The laboratory also holds a track record in prototyping airworthy structures, in both sheet metal and composite. Together, this work produced clear knowledge of what proven, affordable technology actually costs and how much it can carry.

Companies building platforms like these are often good at raising capital and organising systems, but they fail to bring concept, aerostructure, and operational reality together.

Without a person aboard

An aircraft in the size class this laboratory works in costs far less to build when no one flies aboard. The weight, volume, and interface a pilot requires do not just disappear. They become useful load or better performance.

The platform

One piston engine with a tractor propeller, running on automotive gasoline. Maximum useful load 400 kg. One person tows, deploys and launches it from unprepared but inspected field strips with 300 metres available. Range extends generously when traded against load.

Productive capability

The work is repetitive, flown low and close to obstacles, or needed at hours and in conditions when supplying a crew is the hard part.

Precision agricultural spraying, day or night. Aerial application that demands long loiter, such as hail protection placed on the spot and on demand. Emergency response supplies. These needs come from land owners, territorial services, and other civil entities.