Today we celebrate the International Day of Women in Science. For us it is embedded in our company culture, it is in the roots of the company and all of us, men and women in Perceptual Robotics, are very proud of it.

Our drone systems are named after pioneer women in Science, and each of them will need an entire separate post to highlight all their achievements but all share in common that they were pioneers, hard workers and fighters for innovation and technology. Providing reliable solutions to the challenges faced at their time. 

That’s how we see the service Perceptual Robotics provides to society and how we thrive to develop more efficiency and better solutions to the challenges in drones, AI, and renewable industry.

Here is a brief summary of their achievements:

Our first system and drone, Ada, was named after Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician who worked on one of the first computers (the Analytical Engine) in the nineteenth century.

Bea was named after Beatrice Shilling and Beatrice Hicks. Shilling was a British aeronautical engineer, who, during World War II designed the RAE Restrictor, a simple device that overcame the problem of the Rolls-Royce Merlin aeroplane engines losing power during negative-g manoeuvres. Hicks was an American engineer, the first woman engineer to be hired by Western Electric, and both co-founder and first president of the Society of Women Engineers. Hicks developed a gas density switch that would be used in the U.S. space program, including the Apollo Moon landing missions.

Our current Dot system is named after three famous Dorothys:

Dorothy Jean Johnson Vaughan was an American mathematician and human computer who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and NASA, at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In 1949, she became acting supervisor of the West Area Computers, she was the first African-American woman to receive a promotion and supervise a group of staff at the center.

Dorothy Spicer was an English aviator, and the first woman to gain an advanced qualification in aeronautical engineering.

Dorothy Donaldson Buchanan, married name Fleming, was a Scottish civil engineer, and the first female member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, successfully passing the institution’s admission examination in 1927.

While our compact system Eve for Mavic 3 Enterprise drones is named after Evelyn Boyd Granville who was the second African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from an American university; she earned it in 1949 from Yale University. She performed pioneering work during her life  in the field of computing. After working for IBM and collaborating with NASA, Granville had a lifelong career in education and was a fierce advocate for equitable STEM education. Her impact on science, STEM education and society as a whole will be remembered by future generations.

Soon we will be starting to look for a “F”abulous woman in science to name our next development. Feel free to provide a candidate!