Case Study: Digital Aerolus achieves scalable production of next‑gen confined‑space drones with Carbon

Making Industrial Drone Flight Possible with Digital Aerolus

Digital Aerolus, an autonomous-technology company in Lenexa, Kansas, needed to manufacture next‑generation confined‑space drones (the Aertos family) and a new ground control unit (GCU) on an aggressive schedule. The biggest challenge was housings that had to diffuse light yet conceal sensitive hardware; Digital Aerolus worked with production partner Fast Radius, which leveraged Carbon technology — specifically the Carbon Digital Light Synthesis (Carbon DLS) process and the large‑format Carbon L1 printer — to meet those requirements.

Fast Radius implemented a solution using LOCTITE® 3D IND405 on Carbon’s DLS platform and printed large, single‑piece parts on the Carbon L1 with custom digital textures and tunable transparency. The effort delivered 50 functional GCU prototypes and a total of 117 parts for the Aertos 130IR across six manufacturing processes, improved part performance through Carbon’s material portfolio, and enabled more additive production of drone components — positioning the Carbon-enabled partnership to expand to new platform models.

Digital Aerolus

Jeff Alholm

Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder