Gothenburg-Based Company Enters The Drone Industry To Save Lives

The software company, Northcube, forms the subsidiary Everdrone AB. The new company will develop technology for autonomous drones. The company especially focusses on areas of application that can save lives.

The drone industry is currently developing at breakneck speed. The areas of application for flying vehicles seem almost infinite. Drones are used for such diverse purposes as planting trees, inspecting wind turbines and taking spectacular selfies. Behind the technological revolution lies the development of smaller and cheaper technical components, components that to a great extent are developed in the mobile phone industry but have found new applications in flying unmanned vehicles, so-called drones or UAV (Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles).

A new player in the industry is the Gothenburg-based company Everdrone, which develops software with a focus on navigation and safety. The goal of the new company is to within 2-3 years provide a technical solution for safe, autonomous navigation in complex airspace. The technology will be critical for the ability to use drones in densely populated areas, where consideration must be given to both property and people and where safety demands will be very high.

“We currently focus exclusively on technology to be applied in healthcare, rescue and humanitarian efforts”, says Mats Sällström, CEO at Everdrone. “We believe in a future where drones are an important part of the infrastructure, and we already see fantastic applications that are improving communities such as emergency transport of defibrillators, searching for missing persons on land and at sea, or delivery of medicine to areas where traditional vehicles have difficulty reaching. Recently, we have also seen how drones are irreplaceable tools when it came to getting an overview of the catastrophe area following the storm Harvey in Texas in order to better manage and prioritise the relief efforts.”

For 8 years, the company’s founder and development manager Maciek Drejak has run the successful software company Northcube that has, among others, developed the mobile app Sleep Cycle. The app has become a worldwide success, and daily helps one million people to sleep better.

“I began getting interested in drones roughly one year ago, and realised that there was a very limited safety mentality in the industry”, says Maciek. “I have personally programmed since I was 10 years old, and got the idea to try to build a safer and more intelligent drone by myself. A drone that knows its surroundings, understands when the pilot makes a mistake, and which can never crash into objects or people.”

After developing the first prototype, Maciek could establish that his technical solution essentially worked and that his previous programming knowledge could also be applied to flying vehicles. In May, the company Everdrone was founded with the aim to develop the technology for a complete system where all instances, from take-off to landing, can be conducted safely and autonomously.