FAQ
Everything people ask before they design their first drone with DRONA.
DRONA is an AI drone design platform. You describe the mission in plain English ("a thermal drone for solar farm inspection", "a 5-inch freestyle quad around $400") and DRONA designs the complete machine: frame, motors, battery, flight controller, camera, and payload. You get a live 3D model, a physics-validated configuration, a priced parts list with real buy links, wiring, 3D-printable files, and a step-by-step build guide, all in one conversation.
Multirotors (quad, hex, and octocopters in X or Plus layouts), fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, VTOL hybrids, and underwater ROVs. That covers everything from a tiny indoor whoop to a heavy-lift cargo octocopter or a mapping wing. See form factors for the full range.
No. You describe what you want and DRONA handles the engineering: part selection, compatibility, wiring, and the build guide. Every compatibility rule comes with a plain-English "Why", so you learn the engineering as you go instead of needing it up front.
DRONA runs on credits, so you pay for the work the AI actually does. New accounts get 15 free trial credits after confirming their email, no payment needed. When the trial runs out you pick a subscription plan; active subscribers can also buy one-time top-ups for extra credits. Current plans and prices live in Settings, Billing inside the app. Browsing parts, reading docs, and rotating the 3D model are free.
Every design runs through a physics validator before you order anything: thrust-to-weight ratio, propeller clearance, ESC current headroom, battery sag, stack mounting, and more. Errors and warnings are shown with formulas and plain-English explanations, and DRONA re-validates the whole build after every change you ask for.
Yes. Parts come from a live catalog with vendor links and current prices, and the bill of materials gives you a working buy link per line. When a listing cannot be found for an exact part, the line is honestly marked instead of pointing at a dead link, and you source that one item yourself.
Yes. DRONA includes a browser flight simulator: the "Fly it" mode puts your exact design in the air with real physics derived from its weight, motors, and battery, over real-world terrain and wind. Simulations run in the browser with nothing to install, and any flight can be shared as a link.
Yes. Printable components such as frames, mounts, and brackets export as STL and 3MF files, with per-part slicer settings (material, perimeters, infill, orientation) and a print-readiness check that verifies the parts fit your printer bed.
The parts list with prices, a printable build manual, STL and 3MF files for printable components, a Betaflight CLI configuration for the flight controller, and the design itself as a .vdx file (plain TOML you can read, share, and version-control).
Yes. The same design flow covers working machines: crop scouting and spraying for agriculture, thermal panel inspection for solar farms, wind turbine inspection, mapping and survey, and search and rescue. For fleet programs, see Enterprise.
Yes. Ask for changes in chat ("make it lighter", "swap to a thermal camera") and DRONA patches the design and re-validates everything. You can also swap specific parts yourself in the parts browser, and saved designs reopen any time.
A parts picker leaves the engineering to you; CAD assumes you already know what to draw. DRONA does the engineering in the conversation: it chooses compatible parts for the mission, proves the physics, prices the build from live listings, renders it in 3D, and writes the assembly guide. You steer with intent, not with spec sheets.
