Drone manufacturing is entering a new phase in which the boundaries between materials engineering, artificial intelligence, and industrial practice are becoming increasingly blurred. The collaboration between STILFOLD and RISE AI demonstrates that the future of the industry hinges not only on innovations in control electronics and electric drives, but also on a revolution in metal forming and data utilisation. The starting point is a problem faced by the entire sector: how to design lightweight yet durable structures that can withstand the demands of flight and harsh operating conditions quickly and flexibly.
STILFOLD technology is described by its creators as a revolutionary method of shaping lightweight steel and is changing the way components are designed. Reducing material waste and energy consumption is not just a matter of production efficiency; it is also a fundamental condition for achieving competitiveness in an area where every gram of structure and every watt of energy consumed directly affects drone performance. The integration of machine learning is set to pave the way for the full automation of creating optimised structures that are lighter, more durable, and more precisely tailored to operational requirements.
Jonas Nyvang, CEO of STILFOLD, says, “Our technology is perfectly suited to create the lightweight and strong structures that AirForestry needs. With support from Advanced Digitalization and Vinnova, we can now accelerate the development of AI-driven design engineering, which strengthens our competitiveness.”
It is no coincidence that one of the beneficiaries of the project is AirForestry, a company that develops electric drones for selective tree harvesting. Here, the lightness and durability of the structure are not just technical advantages; they are an absolute prerequisite for mission success: a machine operating in the forest must be able to withstand mechanical overloads and irregular environmental conditions while maintaining full efficiency. For STILFOLD, this is an engineering experiment; for AirForestry, it is the foundation of an ecological forest management model, reducing pressure on the natural environment.
“STILFOLD has a revolutionary technology for shaping lightweight steel. For us, this is a perfect match because, working with airborne systems, we always need materials that are both durable and extremely lightweight,” says Mauritz Andersson, CTO and co-founder at AirForestry.
“It’s exciting to participate in a project that combines cutting-edge design and manufacturing technology with AI optimization. We look forward to seeing how it can strengthen our future systems,” says Olle Gelin, CEO and co-founder at AirForestry.
The role of RISE, a Swedish research institute bringing expertise in physically grounded artificial intelligence to the project, is no less important. The combination of materials science and algorithms offers the greatest potential: the ability to create structures that are digitally optimised from the outset to meet the required parameters, rather than being developed through successive iterations and trials. In this sense, the PINNForm project, funded by Vinnova, is not only research into new metal components, but also a laboratory for the industry of the future, where low weight and high rigidity are mutually reinforcing criteria.
This raises a broader question that goes beyond drone manufacturing: are traditional metal design and manufacturing paradigms giving way to a model in which artificial intelligence and sustainable materials engineering define new standards for entire industries?
Photo credit: Stilfold
