LiDAR Mapping: How Exyn Technologies is Revolutionizing Industrial Surveying

October 8, 2025 | Dawn Zoldi

Exyn Technologies, the Philadelphia-based pioneer in advanced LiDAR-driven mapping and surveying solutions, stands at the forefront of B2B autonomy for mission-critical data collection. With roots at the University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP Laboratory, Exyn has grown from tackling substantial safety and data challenges in mining to powering new industrial surveying workflows across construction, aerospace, infrastructure, civil engineering, energy, and the broader geospatial sector. Read on to learn more about the company’s arc from academia to commercial powerhouse.

Robotics and Leadership: Meet CTO Brandon Duick

Duick, a roboticist and hands-on engineering leader, joined Exyn just as it was emerging from the university setting. Hired as the company’s 10th employee over eight years ago, he brought with him deep experience from both his alma mater, UPenn, and Boeing. Now Duick helps to lead Exyn’s technical evolution from core research into real-world, ruggedized and scalable systems. His expertise ranges from SLAM and LiDAR calibration to designing software infrastructure that underpins full-stack product launches. “My real interest lies in robotics, whether on drones, ground vehicles or quadrupeds,” Duick explained. “These aren’t just tools; they’re how our autonomy meets the complexity of the industrial world,” he continued.

Foundations in Innovation: The UPenn Connection

The story of Exyn Technologies begins at UPenn’s famed General Robotics, Automation, Sensing & Perception (GRASP) Lab, with initial leadership from robotics luminary Professor Vijay Kumar. The company was spun out to commercialize breakthroughs in autonomy and Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), technologies that could give robots unprecedented independence and precision in environments hostile to humans or navigation systems. “There’s so much great innovation that happens in universities, but bridging that to the commercial sector is a real challenge. Our founders were passionate about not just building in the lab, but solving real business problems,” recalled Exyn Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Brandon Duick.

First Products and Evolution to Nexys

Exyn Technologies’ first foray into commercial mapping autonomy began with the ExynAero system, a pioneering drone-based platform designed to tackle the unique hazards of underground mining and GPS-denied sites. Drawing directly on UPenn’s research, ExynAero combined LiDAR and advanced SLAM algorithms to allow robots to safely map complex environments without human pilots or predefined waypoints, a major step up from manual and automated drone operations at the time.

Early deployments quickly made clear that real-world challenges can result in unexpected innovation in the field. One memorable anecdote encapsulates both: when a mining customer, eager to leverage this new mapping technology, improvised by taping the Exyn autonomy payload onto the hood of a truck and drove it deep into a mining tunnel to scan the underground spaces. While Exyn had conceived the product as an aerial solution, this user ingenuity highlighted the need for flexible, multi-modal mapping tools, which sparked a critical insight for the team.

CTO Brandon Duick recounted, “We heard about a customer who taped the drone down to the hood of their jeep and drove it into the mine. They used our payload to map tunnels in ways we hadn’t imagined. It hit us: why not design a dedicated mobile system?” The lesson learned: scanning needs to traverse more than the skies.

This feedback catalyzed Exyn’s transition from a drone-only payload to the development of modular, multi-platform systems. After the ExynAero, Exyn introduced the ExynPak handheld device, incorporating the same sensors and autonomy, for use in tight or vertical spaces inaccessible to drones. All of these lessons culminated in the creation of Nexys, a highly modular mapping system.

LiDAR: The Core of Exyn’s Modular Autonomy

Exyn’s current flagship product, Nexys, epitomizes versatility, intelligence and reliability. Engineered as a modular mapping system, Nexys can be quickly deployed handheld, on a backpack, mounted to vehicles, attached to quadruped robots or flown on drones. This modularity ensures a flexible fit for every customer’s workflow, whether mapping a hazardous underground mine, surveying a sprawling construction site or inspecting infrastructure in a GPS-denied environment.

At its heart, Nexys integrates survey-grade LiDAR sensors (Ouster, Velodyne, and Hesai) and hemispherical cameras to capture up to 1.9 million scan points per second with 5mm survey accuracy. Rugged by design, Nexys thrives in dust-filled, wet and unstable settings that defeat most mapping tools. Its real-time point cloud colorization gives stakeholders immediate feedback on site, with advanced SLAM algorithms that ensure accuracy, even when traditional navigation aids fail.

ExynAI: Intelligent Navigation in the Harshest Environments

Exyn’s autonomy engine, ExynAI, is what makes industrial mapping truly hands-off. ExynAI delivers Level 4B autonomy. This means that operators can define the area of interest (AOI), and Nexys will independently navigate, explore and survey the space, even when communications are lost or in total darkness.

The system requires no GPS, no prior maps and no skilled pilot. This makes it essential, not only for underground mining but also for remote infrastructure, bridges, utilities and disaster sites where human access is limited or risky.

“Rather than repeating flights and coaxing drones into hazardous zones, operators can simply set a region,” noted Duick. “Our system explores that space and collects data with unprecedented coverage and safety.”

Behind the scenes, ExynAI fuses LiDAR, visual and inertial data to quickly generate high-fidelity 3D digital twins and colorized point clouds. The company’s ExynView tablet interface centralizes workflows to give real-time insight and post-mission analytics, ready to integrate with industry-standard GIS and BIM software.

Integration and Openness: API and SDK Enablement

Consistent with its constant technology development cycles, Exyn is now aggressively opening its platform for third-party innovation, through the Nexys API. It allows customers to build custom interfaces and deploy Nexys hardware within specialized workflows, from industrial inspection and energy sector asset management to highly regulated government applications. This flexibility meets a growing market demand for modular, non-proprietary solutions capable of scaling with emerging needs.

The next leap forward involves Exyn’s new SDK, a software development kit that fully decouples ExynAI from the Nexys hardware to allow integrators to deploy Exyn’s advanced mapping and autonomy on a wider range of robotic vehicles and sensor payloads.

Industrial and Global Impact: A Range of Market Use Cases

Mining remains Exyn’s flagship use case, with deployments that reduce risk and increase operational efficiency for global leaders in precious metals, bulk materials, and minerals. Yet the span of Nexys reaches far beyond. Civil engineers use it to scan and model structures quickly, contractors apply it for progress tracking and site assessments and geospatial professionals rely on its accuracy for everything from natural disaster response to historical preservation.

With regulatory tailwinds such as the Part 108 beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS drone rulemaking) on the horizon in the U.S., with emphasis on increased levels of autonomy, as infrastructure and safety demands continue to mount worldwide, Exyn’s B2B autonomy solution arrives at a pivotal moment. (See prior AG coverage of Autonomy in Part 108).  Nexys and ExynAI address the need for repeatable, reliable data, whether automating weekly factory scans, monitoring utility lines or supporting resilience planning in climate-affected zones.

What’s Next: Continue to Evolve with Every Mission

The future for Exyn Technologies revolves around continuous improvement. “There’s no such thing as ‘mission complete’ in tech,” agreed Duick. “There is always another scenario, another integration or another iteration that adds value for our customers,” he said.

Exyn’s product roadmap focuses on expanding the capabilities of its SDK for true hardware-agnostic deployments, supporting a broader range of sensors, automating deeper levels of analytics and facilitating seamless integration into customer and partner ecosystems.

As adoption of its suite of products continues to grow, Exyn aims to strengthen its ecosystem of integrators, robotics OEMs and industry partners. Duick and Exyn leaders recognize that partnership is essential to scaling B2B autonomy across industries. The company’s recent API and SDK-powered integrations, already in pilot with global stakeholders, prove that they put their money where their mouths are in terms of industry advancement and teaming.

Parting Words: A Partner-Centric Call to Action

For enterprises and technology innovators eager to drive safer, smarter and more efficient data workflows, Exyn Technologies does not sell products. They offer a platform ripe for integration and collaboration. Duick put out a call for robotics manufacturers, GIS providers, system integrators and infrastructure owners to collaborate with Exyn, build new workflows and put next-level autonomy into the hands of the professionals who need it most.

As the company continues evolving from a Penn lab startup to a global vendor, Exyn remains clear-eyed in its mission to deliver on the promise of high-integrity data for the hardest jobs on earth by leveraging modular robotics and world-class autonomy. In the words of Brandon Duick, “We see a big opportunity to get ExynAI software into more places and get critical data to the people who need it. If you think there’s a good fit, let’s tackle it together,” he urged.

For any B2B organization with hard mapping and surveying problems, Exyn Technologies stands ready: modular, accurate and open for partnership. Keep an eye on this company, as it advances the future of autonomy, one mission at a time.

Watch Brandon Duick on the Dawn of Autonomy, Episode 91.