Cleaning Drone Hits Record 280 Feet With New Pulley

Lucid Bots cleaned the exterior of a 23-story hotel tower at 280 feet above ground using its Sherpa drone paired with a new rooftop pulley system called Sherpa HighLine, the company announced October 1, 2026. The run, at the Monarch Casino Resort Spa in Black Hawk, Colorado, is the highest a cleaning drone has operated in the United States, according to Lucid Bots.

Background

Drone-based building cleaning uses a quadcopter or multirotor aircraft to spray water, soft-wash chemical, or sealant onto a building's exterior through a hose connected to a ground-based pump — a faster and cheaper alternative to rope-access technicians or boom lifts for window washing, façade cleaning, and water-repellent coatings. The method has grown into its own niche within the broader drone services business over the past few years, led by companies like Charlotte, North Carolina-based Lucid Bots and its Sherpa aircraft.

The limiting factor has always been the hose. As a cleaning drone climbs, it has to lift the full weight of the water- or chemical-filled hose trailing behind it, which caps how high and how far a given airframe can fly before it runs out of lift capacity. Operators have typically worked around this by using thinner hoses at height, which cuts the flow rate and slows the job down.

How Sherpa HighLine Works

Sherpa HighLine is a software-controlled, motorized pulley system that mounts to a building's existing rooftop equipment and supports the hose from above rather than leaving the drone to carry its full weight from the ground. As the Sherpa climbs, the rooftop unit pays out and tensions the hose in sync with the aircraft, redistributing the load instead of the drone bearing all of it.

"Supporting the hose from the rooftop changes the equation," said Robert Blank, Lucid Bots' VP of R&D, in the company's announcement. Because the rooftop system — not the drone's motors — carries part of the hose's weight, operators can run larger-diameter hoses at height without adding lift burden to the aircraft, increasing flow rate for faster jobs instead of forcing a trade-off between reach and speed.

The Monarch Casino Demo

Lucid Bots ran the 280-foot test in late September 2026 in partnership with three operators: BlackJet Drone Solutions, MG Cleaning Systems, and Oklahoma Drone Technologies. "The HighLine supported the hose as we climbed, allowing us to reach the full 280-foot height," said Parker Eakins, owner of Oklahoma Drone Technologies, who flew the demonstration.

Lucid Bots founder and CEO Andrew Ashur said the result is a new ceiling for the industry: "280 feet is the highest a cleaning drone has cleaned in the United States." The company has not announced a maximum height for HighLine, saying only that the Monarch Casino run represents the current record rather than a hard limit of the system.

What This Means for Drone Pilots

For operators already running a Sherpa or similar cleaning-drone fleet, HighLine opens up high-rise and institutional contracts — hotel towers, hospitals, stadiums — that were previously out of reach or required slower, thinner-hose workarounds. Lucid Bots is taking $250 refundable reservation deposits now ahead of a limited release in the fourth quarter of 2026, with full production slated for early 2027; the company says buyers will need operator approval and training before deployment.

More broadly, the demo is a reminder that commercial drone services extend well beyond photography, mapping, and infrastructure inspection — building maintenance is a fast-growing, underexposed vertical for pilots looking to diversify a drone business. The hardware is US-specific for now: Lucid Bots has not announced international availability or pricing outside the domestic market.

Sources: Lucid Bots via PR Newswire | DroneDJ