Volar Robotics builds aerial robots that don't just watch the world, they reach out and touch it. We give drones a true sense of touch, turning contact from an enemy into an ally: from a source of instability into reliable measurements that exploit it.
From drone-as-a-camera to drone-as-a-worker: a new generation of aerial systems that don't just observe industrial assets: they touch them, measure them, and act on them.
Technology
Our stack reframes aerial physical interaction: rather than fighting disturbances with brute actuation, we let physics do the stabilizing, and we give the robot a sense of touch so it knows exactly what physics will allow.
We treat the Coulomb friction cone as a passive, virtually‑infinite‑bandwidth physical regulator. High-frequency disturbances (gusts, prop-wash, surface texture) are rejected by physics itself. The active controller only has to maintain a slow safety margin inside the cone.
A silicone membrane with an internal camera that "sees" what the robot touches. A learned regressor extracts contact-patch geometry and three-axis contact force at video rate, feeding the controller a live map of the contact state.
Markets
We focus on critical assets where inspection today means rope-access teams, scaffolding and plant shutdowns, and where a quantitative measurement is worth far more than an image.
Ultrasonic thickness measurements on platforms, refineries and storage tanks, without scaffolding, ATEX-aware, on demand.
Tower and blade inspections on tall vertical infrastructure, with diagnostics that go beyond visual assessment.
Bridges, viaducts and stadia: frequent, repeatable inspections that turn condition monitoring into a routine, not an exception.
Cleaning remote sensors, applying protective coatings, installing IoT devices on vertical assets, operations that today demand rope teams or downtime.
Multi-agent aerial robots that grasp, transport and assemble in inaccessible environments, a new class of in-situ industrial work.
Why Volar
By moving complexity from mechanics to software, our platform is dramatically simpler and more affordable than tilting-rotor systems, while doing things visual drones and magnetic crawlers cannot.
Eliminate human risk, scaffolding cost and plant downtime.
Measure thickness and corrosion, not just photograph a surface.
Fixed-pitch hardware + advanced control = a fraction of the price.
Concrete, composite, aluminum, with continuous force adjustment.
Research
Each chapter is a stand-alone project that builds toward a single technical thesis. Open one for results, papers and code.
Soft Optical Aerial Robot: Touch
Laid the perception and control foundations for tactile aerial interaction: soft optical tactile feedback into an energy-aware contact controller, carried from simulation through manipulator HIL to flight on a fully-actuated multirotor.
Read more →Soft Optical Aerial Robot: Sense
Carries the SOAR-Touch foundations into in-flight surface sensing: friction-aware contact paired with soft optical tactile feedback for reliable, repeatable and energy-efficient inspection of industrial assets.
Details coming soonTeam
Volar Robotics is co-founded by two control engineers trained in aerial physical interaction at the Robotics Laboratory of Sapienza University of Rome.
Designs the flight control laws that let a multirotor enter, hold and leave contact with the environment, with stability, robustness and energy efficiency as first-class goals.
PhD candidate, ABRO · DIAG · Sapienza University of Rome
Personal website →Leads the AI pipeline that turns soft-tactile signals into real-time friction estimates and contact intelligence, closing the perception–control loop.
PhD candidate, ABRO · DIAG · Sapienza University of Rome
Personal website →Contact
If you operate critical industrial assets, or provide NDT services for those who do, we'd love to discuss how a contact-capable aerial platform fits your workflow. Pilot collaborations are open.
