Artificial intelligence (AI) mobility diagnostics corporations Weflo said on the 10th that it has launched FloOne, a quality inspection automation solution that supports a dark factory transition for defense-use drone manufacturing processes.
A dark factory is an unmanned automated plant that operates 24 hours without worker intervention. Recently, in the defense-use drone industry, where the scope of use is expanding to reconnaissance, surveillance, strike, and swarm operations, the introduction of dark factories is gaining momentum in line with the demand to shift to mass production systems.
In drone manufacturing sites, the quality inspection process is considered a domain that is not easy to automate. In the process of checking motors and propellers, airframe balance, and electronic component anomalies, many tasks rely on worker experience and manual work.
FloOne was developed as a solution specialized for the pre-shipment quality inspection stage to address these issues. It collects physical data such as sound, vibration, and electromagnetic waves generated by drones, and automatically determines the airframe condition through AI analysis that combines this with vision data. Inspection results are automatically linked to the manufacturer's quality management system (QMS) and manufacturing execution system (MES). Not only pre-shipment quality verification but also defect cause analysis and manufacturing history management can be performed based on data.
Weflo expects that introducing FloOne will raise the level of automation in drone manufacturing processes and secure both quality reliability and production efficiency.
FloOne is designed with a modular architecture that can be applied to manufacturing environments without being limited to specific models or production lines. It supports quality inspection for up to 750 drones per day.
Chief Executive Kim Uijeong of Weflo said, "Drones are a mobility where even a small anomaly can lead to operational risk," adding, "As it is important to verify and manage quality based on data from the manufacturing stage, we will establish quality standards on defense, public, and industrial drone manufacturing sites."