Drones (aerial)
Caged / confined-space drone
A collision-tolerant drone in a protective cage, built to fly inside tanks, boilers, tunnels, sewers and mines where GPS does not work.
Good at
Seeing inside confined spaces without sending a person in or building scaffolding.
Watch out for
Short flights, dust and darkness; the cage costs payload and endurance.
Specs that matter for this type
- Weight
- Runtime / flight time
- Payload
- Top speed
- Range
- Max wind resistance
- Ingress protection (IP)
- Operating temperature
- Sensors
Jobs it does
Usually the main robot for
- Boiler & furnace inspection
- Confined space inspection
- Aircraft exterior inspection
- Ship cargo hold & ballast tank inspection
- Silo & bin inspection
- Underground mine & stope mapping
Also used for
Models we've catalogued
How to read this. Specs come from each maker's own spec page or datasheet, with the link and the date we checked it. Blank means the maker doesn't publish it (or we haven't found it). Scores are a whirrwork assessment, not a lab test: we only score a model when independent trials or tests exist. Methodology.
| Model | Runtime / flight time | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Flyability Elios 3 Flyability | 17 min | Not enough evidence to rate |
Also called: caged drone, caged indoor drone, indoor caged drone, collision-tolerant drone, indoor drone, underground LiDAR drone.