Thorondrone specializes in the design and production of highly specialized fixed-wing electric aircraft. Our unique design methodology is based on analyzing large volumes of data and using advanced simulation techniques, which allow us to create unmanned aircraft tailored to your specific needs and objectives. Furthermore, we offer the ability to use ML/AI technology to process the collected data during and after flights. These technologies enable us to optimize the performance and efficiency of unmanned aircraft, resulting in longer flights and more precise missions—whether you need rapid payload delivery, efficient inspections or terrain monitoring.
In the last decade, unmanned aircraft (commonly known as drones) have rapidly grown in popularity due to their many applications. In a very short time, they have integrated into all areas of society, with the biggest impact in fields such as the military industry, agriculture, and industrial monitoring. Technological advancements—especially in battery systems and electric motors—have made unmanned systems highly efficient and quiet, giving them significant advantages in terms of environmental impact compared to fossil-fuel-powered aircraft. Combined with the tremendous development of the IT industry, drones have become extremely easy to operate, enabling automated tasks to be completed quickly, safely, and cheaply, while efficiently collecting and processing data.
The global market for unmanned aircraft is expected to reach nearly 200 billion US dollars by 2030, which is an eight-fold increase compared to 2023. Of that, as much as 75% of the market consists of multirotor aircraft, while only the remainder refers to fixed-wing aircraft, which represent the premium segment of the market. They generate lift using fixed wings rather than rotating ones (propellers), and although they are superior in terms of maximum flight duration, range, and speed, in professional applications multirotor aircraft are generally preferred. The main reason for the lower popularity of fixed-wing aircraft is their extremely complex and time-consuming design, which has not advanced in step with 21st-century technology, making the final product significantly more expensive than its multirotor competitors.
This is precisely why Thorondrone was created—a project aimed at significantly accelerating and simplifying the design of fixed-wing drones. Our team has developed an innovative design methodology that facilitates reduction of the cost and the duration of research and development of fixed-wing unmanned aircraft by up to four times. Unlike traditional approaches, this design process is developed exclusively for electric unmanned aircraft, enabling interaction between various engineering domains such as aerodynamics, battery systems, and composite structures. On the other hand, optimization and estimation of key aircraft parameters are driven by artificial intelligence, enabling incredibly fast generation of an aircraft that is primarily maximally efficient. A major advantage of this approach is the extremely simple adaptation of the aircraft at any moment—such as selecting different components or redefining requirements—which is one of the main reasons traditional design is so complex.
The main idea is to offer the market—primarily manufacturers and operators of unmanned aircraft—rapid design services for a complete smart unmanned system. This includes the design of the aircraft body, the selection of equipment and sensors, and optionally even manufacturing. Since the main purpose of a drone is to collect data from the air, Thorondrone also develops software based on artificial intelligence and computer vision, which provides deeper insights into the collected flight data, such as detecting people, vehicles, and smoke. Besides offering operators additional insights into the collected data, the software increases situational awareness in the field and speeds up mission outcomes. The combination of artificial intelligence technologies and the innovative design methodology enables maximum system efficiency, significantly improving the quality of flight operations.
Team members
The core of Thorondrone consists of three students—aviation and drone enthusiasts—Antonio Butigan and brothers Bruno and Domagoj Ćorić, guided in the right direction by Prof. PhD Pero Prebeg, The team possesses a wide range of technical and non-technical knowledge, but more importantly, experience working together on projects such as student competitions and the development and production of various aircraft.
Antonio Butigan, univ. bacc. ing. aeroing., is a graduate student in aeronautical engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture in Zagreb. Through his work in the student organization EUROAVIA Zagreb, where he served as vice president, he had the opportunity to develop socially useful unmanned systems. Antonio did not choose engineering as the focus of his career but instead turned toward management consulting, gaining experience in the strategic and operational consulting department of one of the Big Four firms in Croatia. Therefore, his role is to develop the startup’s business plan and strategy.
Bruno Ćorić, univ. bacc. ing. comp., is a graduate student in computer science at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb, specializing in artificial intelligence. With over two years of professional experience as an AI engineer at Photomath, Bruno has gained expertise in applying artificial intelligence in the professional world—whether in computer vision, natural language processing, or structured data. Within the team, he is responsible for developing AI-based tools that facilitate the design and operational use of drones.
Domagoj Ćorić, univ. bacc. ing. aeroing., is a graduate student in aeronautical engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture in Zagreb, specializing in aerodynamics and unmanned aircraft development. Domagoj has experience working in the drone industry in the Netherlands, and as a project leader and competition lead within EUROAVIA Zagreb, he has already designed and built five unmanned aircraft. In Thorondrone, he serves as the team leader and head of design process development.
Assoc. Prof. PhD Pero Prebeg is a researcher with 20 years of experience participating in and leading projects. He is currently employed at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture in Zagreb and is the head of the Laboratory for Ship Structures, where scientific research projects in the field of thin-walled structure analysis and design are conducted. His scientific work focuses on the design of aeronautical and ship structures and on the application of optimization methods in engineering system design. Within Thorondrone, he serves as the head of research and business development.
Motivation for Applying and Vision for the End of the Nuqleus Program
We applied to the Nuqleus program primarily to validate our idea. We believe that Nuqleus’s greatest strength lies in its phenomenal network of mentors and organizations within the regional startup ecosystem, making participation in the program an opportunity for fast and effective market research and business plan development. By the end of the program, we want to fully understand the direction in which the drone industry is heading, and through feedback received during workshops and tasks, we want to develop new and refine existing skills relevant to business development. Our vision for the future is to accelerate the electrification of the entire aviation industry and significantly reduce development costs, while in the meantime promoting the integration of unmanned systems into all segments of society.
