Facts

• Segment: Aerial
• Country: United States
• Founded: 2016
• Website: https://cleorobotics.com/

Profile sections

• Summary
• Market context
• Products
• Facts
• Commercial
• Context / Market Position
• Events
• Operations / Deployments
• Team
• Supply chain relationships
• Relationships
• Context tags
• Customers and deployments
• Sources

Summary

Cleo Robotics builds enclosed-rotor Dronut UAVs for indoor, confined-space and GPS-denied operations. The Dronut DD1 is designed for inspection, security and defence missions where operators need a compact aerial robot that can fly near people and sensitive equipment.

Market context

Cleo solves a narrow but important aerial robotics constraint: safe flight near people, walls, sensitive equipment, and confined infrastructure. Its enclosed-propeller architecture gives it a differentiated position in inspection, security, and defence use cases. Cleo Robotics builds enclosed-rotor UAVs for inspection, security and defence missions in confined or GPS-denied environments.

Products

• Dronut DD1

Facts

• Website: https://cleorobotics.com/
• HQ: Boston, United States
• Founded: 2016
• Segment: Aerial

Commercial

1 commercial event; 1 contract award; latest event 2022-12-07

• 2022-12-07 - Contract award - Cleo Robotics receives $2.5M U.S. Army contract for Tactical Dronut prototypes - source: massrobotics.org

Enclosed-propeller inspection drones for confined and sensitive environments

Cleo Robotics develops compact inspection drones built around fully enclosed propellers. Its Dronut DD1 platform is designed to fly safely near people, inside tight spaces and around sensitive equipment where conventional exposed-rotor drones are harder to operate.

• Target environment: Industrial inspection sites, confined spaces, tactical environments, facilities, infrastructure assets and sensitive indoor equipment areas.
• Deployment model: Drone hardware model built around enclosed-propeller aircraft, inspection use cases, ruggedization, payload integration and customer deployments.
• Customer context: Industrial inspectors, defence or tactical users, facility operators, public safety teams and customers needing safe close-proximity aerial inspection.
• Workflow context: Confined-space inspection, indoor drone operation, tactical reconnaissance, facility inspection, rugged close-proximity flight and visual data capture.
• Commercial maturity: Cleo has a differentiated drone form factor and visible product line. Its commercial maturity is strongest in inspection and close-proximity aerial work rather than broad outdoor drone fleets.
• Market position: Inspection drone builder positioned around enclosed-propeller safety and confined-space operation.
• Adoption constraints: Flight endurance, payload limits, reliability in harsh spaces, customer training, indoor autonomy, support coverage and competition from ground inspection robots.
• Adjacent context: Inspection drones, aerial robotics, confined-space inspection, public safety robotics and industrial inspection.
• Source confidence: high

Events

• 2025-07-16 - Product Launch - Cleo Robotics launches Dronut DD1 for confined and GPS-denied environments - Cleo Robotics launched Dronut DD1 as an enclosed-propeller aerial robot for real-time intelligence in confined,…
• 2025-01-29 - Research Publication - UA-1 PH2 DECISIVE Testing Handbook: Test Methods and Benchmarking Performance Results for sUAS in Dense Urban Environments - The DECISIVE Phase II handbook reports dense-urban sUAS be…
• 2023-01-19 - Research Publication - DECISIVE Benchmarking Data Report: sUAS Performance Results from Phase I - The DECISIVE Phase I report benchmarks small unmanned aerial systems in subterranean and constrained indoor…
• 2022-12-07 - Contract Award - Cleo Robotics receives $2.5M U.S. Army contract for Tactical Dronut prototypes - Cleo Robotics received a $2.5 million U.S. Army contract to deliver prototype Tactical Dronut systems for IS…
• 2021-12-02 - Product Launch - Cleo Robotics ships Dronut X1 indoor inspection drone - The enclosed-propeller design supported flight near people and sensitive equipment.
• 2021-11-18 - Product Launch - Cleo Robotics announces commercial availability of Dronut X1 - Cleo Robotics announced commercial availability of Dronut X1 for industrial and commercial applications.
• 2018-02-07 - Demonstration - Cleo Robotics demonstrates enclosed ducted-fan drone prototype - IEEE Spectrum profiled Cleo early donut-shaped drone prototype built around enclosed propellers.

Operations / Deployments

• 2021-11-18 - Product Launch - Cleo Robotics announces commercial availability of Dronut X1 - Cleo Robotics announced commercial availability of Dronut X1 for industrial and commercial applications.

Team

• Omar Eleryan - Co-founder and CEO

Supply chain relationships

• ModalAI - VOXL SDK and autonomy compute - ModalAI supplies VOXL software and autonomy support used by Cleo Robotics for Dronut confined-space navigation.

Relationships

• investor - IQT made a strategic investment in Cleo Robotics ahead of the Dronut DD1 launch.
• United States Army - customer - U.S. Army awarded Cleo Robotics a $2.5M contract for Tactical Dronut prototype systems.
• United States Army - Tactical Dronut prototype customer - Cleo Robotics received a U.S. Army contract for Tactical Dronut prototypes.

Context tags

• Indoor confined-space inspection - Workflow - Cleo Dronut operates in indoor, confined, GPS-denied spaces.
• Enclosed propeller flight - Capability - Cleo Dronut uses enclosed ducted-fan propeller design for safe indoor flight.
• Indoor drone OEM - Stack Layer - Cleo Robotics builds enclosed-rotor indoor drones.
• Autonomous drone operations - Capability - Cleo Dronut operates autonomously for indoor inspection missions.
• Unmanned aircraft OEM - Stack Layer - Cleo builds complete unmanned aircraft for indoor inspection.
• Indoor inspection drone builder - Peer Group - Cleo Robotics Dronut systems are used for indoor inspection.
• Commercial deployment - Commercial Stage - Cleo has commercial indoor inspection drone products.
• Public safety robotics - Workflow - Cleo Robotics targets security and public-safety inspection users.
• Industrial inspection drone builder - Peer Group - Cleo drones are used for industrial confined-space inspection.
• Indoor industrial sites - Customer Environment - Cleo Dronut is used in indoor industrial and confined-space environments.

Customers and deployments

• Commercial Rollout - $2.5 million Tactical Dronut prototype contract - 2022-12-07 - U.S. Army - United States - Cleo Robotics received a $2.5 million U.S. Army contract to develop Tactical Dronut prototypes. - source po…