RoboGlow

RoboGlow is a drone light show system that Robota, a Dallas, Texas maker of RTK GNSS receivers, sells as a complete kit to event producers, entertainment companies and municipalities that want to own a show fleet instead of renting shows. A kit includes LED show drones, 20-inch cube transport cases, charging, a cable-free RoboDot RTK base station, the RoboShow design software, training for pilots and show designers, and US-based support from Robota's engineering team.

Formation flying depends on satellite positioning. The show drones navigate on GNSS (Robota's product specification lists GPS, GLONASS and Galileo on L1/L2), and the RoboDot base station feeds RTK corrections (RTCM3) to every drone in the fleet for centimeter-level accuracy, which keeps hundreds of drones in position while they draw logos and animations. Robota states that a single RoboDot can provide corrections to hundreds of show drones at once.

Shows are built in RoboShow, which designs formations and animations and simulates the whole show in 3D with collision and spacing checks and geofence constraints. Sites are planned in ShowPlotter (launch grid, geofence, audience standoff distances), and shows are flown from the GloCS ground control station with Fly-To staging, per-drone monitoring, geofencing, low-battery return and failsafe landings. Each case holds 20 drones of about 1 lb, flight time is up to 25 minutes per charge, and the RGBW LEDs offer 16.7 million color combinations. Robota states that a small team can deploy the system in under an hour. Kits are configured to fleet size and priced individually on request.