An Eagle Named Aithon Robotics

An Eagle Named Aithon Robotics

Built for meticulous inspection: Eight ETH graduates have developed a drone for bridge inspections.

Let’s recall: Prometheus brought fire to humanity and was punished by Zeus, king of the gods, who banished him from Olympus. As punishment, he was chained to a rock. Hanging there, the eagle Aithon set upon him.

Now, eight ETH graduates are bringing Greek mythology into the present: under the name Aithon Robotics, they’ve developed a drone that can attach itself to various surfaces. “We can perform tasks that would otherwise require scaffolding or lifting platforms, even in hard-to-reach places,” explains Timon Mathis, who helped initiate the project in 2022 as part of a focus project during his mechanical engineering studies.

“One important use case is bridge inspection: we can fly to any point on a bridge, attach ourselves there, scan the surface, even take a core sample, and then fly away again.” Their eagle can press tools weighing up to 5 kg against a wall with a force of 30 kg. The attachment works via suction cups, powered by two vacuum cleaner motors.

A significant part of the development is thanks to the environment on the IPZ (Innovation Park Zurich) campus. “We benefit from the exchange every day,” says Mathis. “In every respect: a random conversation at the coffee machine can unexpectedly move you a crucial step forward.” And if anyone would know, it’s the Aithon team. They’re already veterans on the premises: first they were allowed to use a garage for flight tests, then they spent two years in the “Büro Züri” office, and soon they’ll be one of the first industrial projects to move into Hangar 2 at ETH Zurich. It doesn’t get more IPZ than that.