Anton Pobuta, a student at the Kyiv Aviation Institute, founded lab 418, a company that manufactures FPV drones for the Defense Forces. It creates standard-sized drones, as well as designs a large 22-inch drone-repeater.
SPEKA spoke with Anton Pobyta, who is preparing to defend his diploma at the Kyiv Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He said that he bought Chinese components for UAH 16,000 for his first drone.
«With the beginning of the reorganization, when a new team came to the then NAU, we began to cooperate. We conducted a course in FPV engineering. At that time, it was relevant. Later, together with the university, we launched an engineering school», — Anton noted.
He said that he invested $6,000 of his own money in creating the startup. Currently, lab 418 works with students, taking them on for jobs and internships. The company also attracts teachers who are «very helpful» in engineering matters. In addition, KAI helped in setting up the R&D center and conducting testing.
What drones does lab 418 create?
The company produces a line of mass-produced 7-, 8-, and 10-inch FPV drones, but also works on custom solutions such as «hexadrones.»
«The project includes a 22-inch drone. This is a large drone that will be a repeater. There are also aircraft-type drones. Now, for example, part of the team is developing a flying wing UAV. We do everything for it ourselves, except for the electronics», — notes Pobuta.
According to him, lab 418 can produce about 1,000 drones per month with the efforts of a small team of 12 people.
«If there is an order, we can do more. We cooperate with KAI, there are several joint programs, including a training program. We invite students from these programs to our company for internships and work. They are both in the development center and in production, even first-year students. At the expense of students, we can quickly scale up, since there are enough willing people», — explains the KAI student.
Anton Potuba noted that lab 418 is a verified Brave1 company that has passed compliance.
«We recently received funding for a specific development, that is, we received a request from the military and foundations to develop a specific drone, and they provided us with funds for this development», — he said.
The student notes that the company has room to grow, but it needs two resources — money and people.
«Right now we would like to hire a few full-time software specialists to work better. But we don’t have the budget to pay these people salaries. If we had more funding, we would be able to do more and better», — says the founder of lab 418.
Recall that in December last year, the private Ukrainian company Vyriy drone, which mass-produces strike drones for the Defense Forces, announced a 10-inch FPV drone completely localized in Ukraine. It received motors from Motor-G, a video transmitter from December1, and a thermal imaging camera Kurbas-256 from Odd Systems.
