Prometheus Drone

Prometheus drone, made up of four propellers, raspberry pi microcontroller with cable, motor control box with cable, plastic box with PCB inside and push button with wires. Manufactured by Headlight AI and the University of Manchester, London, 2022.

The Prometheus drone is an autonomous reconfigurable robotic platform for inspecting underground GPS denied environments and confined spaces. It can be deployed through 150mm boreholes, where it can be used to inspect and map unknown environments. Underground lineside inspections are a vital part of railway maintenance and the Prometheus drone has been developed to make the process safer, easier and cheaper. This technology combines two very simple ideas to create something pioneering for the industry. Firstly, Prometheus has folding arms so it can enter underground through a small borehole, no bigger than a football. Once below the surface, it uses artificial intelligence (AI) to navigate its environment autonomously and scan the area to create a computerised 3D replica, known as a digital twin.