The French company Dronavia develops safety-relevant components for professional drones and makes extensive use of additive manufacturing. The goal is to produce compact, resilient, and especially lightweight parts that meet both the regulatory requirements of the EASA and the operational challenges of drone deployments.
Core products such as parachute systems, emergency cut-off switches, and geocaging modules require precisely manufactured plastic components with high mechanical stability. For this purpose, Dronavia primarily uses Polyamide 12 (PA12), processed via Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) or alternatively through Selective Laser Sintering (SLS). While MJF is mainly used for black components, SLS is chosen for colored elements. Both methods offer high surface quality and enable the rapid production of small to medium-sized batches.
A key technical objective is weight reduction, to avoid negatively impacting the drones’ range and flight duration. At the same time, components must be robust enough to perform reliably under real-life operating conditions—such as during parachute deployment or in the event of automatic detection of control loss. To achieve this, software-based functionalities are also directly integrated into the hardware, such as position detection sensors or modules for automatic activation of safety functions.
Dronavia is currently developing a geocaging system that automatically initiates flight termination when the drone leaves a defined airspace. Such features are especially important for BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) scenarios. Additionally, the company is working on industrial applications, such as dust removal in hard-to-reach areas using drones—an application that places specific demands on material and design.
To implement its projects, Dronavia collaborates with service providers such as Sculpteo. „Sculpteo provides us with unmatched quality and precision for our 3D-printed parts, accelerating the development of our innovative drone safety solutions“, said Ludovic Pelletey, CEO / R&D manager at Dronavia.
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