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Trial a confined-space inspection robot on a retired airframe

A wing that is no longer flying, a robot that would like to be trusted, and a defect set that is not a stock photograph.

Budget

£22–38k

Duration

10 weeks

Closes

25 Sept 2026

Background

Our inspection platform works. What we cannot yet demonstrate is how it performs against a human inspector on genuine service damage, and without that comparison no regulated operator can adopt it, however good the demonstration video.

We need a retired airframe section with real defects — the kind that developed in service rather than the kind produced deliberately in a laboratory — and an NDT-competent host willing to run a proper comparative trial. We will provide the platform and the operators.

The comparison must be honest, and we mean this. If the human inspector finds defects our platform misses, we need to know that, in writing, with the cases characterised. A trial designed to flatter the robot is worth nothing to us because it will be worth nothing to a regulator.

Scope

  • Provide or host a retired airframe section with known and unknown defects.
  • Run the Quill platform and a human inspector on the same task.
  • Compare findings without protecting anyone's feelings.
  • Characterise every disagreement between platform and inspector.
  • Advise on what further evidence a certification argument would require.

Constraints

The awkward facts, stated now rather than in week six.

  • Defects must be genuine service damage; deliberately introduced defects are of limited value
  • The human inspector must be independently competent and not employed by us
  • Some structure will be inaccessible to the platform, and this must be recorded rather than avoided
  • Ten weeks includes trial design, execution and reporting

Deliverables

  • Trial protocol and defect map
  • Comparative report (robot vs inspector)
  • Recommendations for a certifiable evidence pack
  • Characterisation of each disagreement, with imagery
  • A statement of which areas the platform could not reach

Milestones

  1. Week 2Trial protocol agreed and defect map established independently
  2. Week 4Platform deployed on site, operators trained on the structure
  3. Week 7Comparative trial executed, raw findings recorded
  4. Week 10Comparative report and certification evidence recommendations

Who should apply

  • MRO, OEM, or university with airframe access
  • NDT competence on site
  • Access to a retired airframe section with documented service history
  • Willingness to report results that do not favour the platform

How applications will be judged

In roughly this order.

  • Quality and provenance of the available airframe structure
  • Independence and competence of the proposed human inspector
  • Rigour of the proposed comparative protocol
  • Explicit commitment to reporting unfavourable findings

Terms

  • The comparative report is jointly owned and may be published by either party after six months
  • Platform design and software remain wholly our intellectual property
  • The host's airframe and service history are confidential unless the host agrees otherwise
  • Unfavourable findings are reported in full; this is a condition of the engagement

Apply

Tell the publisher who you are and what you would do. We pass it on. The rest is between grown-ups.

We would rather hear that your structure has only four known defects than be told it has forty and find out otherwise on site.