MikroKopter is a German company, a subsidiary of HiSystems GmbH, that manufactures

battery-powered An electric battery is a source of electric power consisting of one or more electrochemical cells with external connections for powering electrical devices. When a battery is supplying power, its positive terminal is the cathode and its negat ...

radio-controlled Radio control (often abbreviated to RC) is the use of control signals transmitted by radio to remotely control a device. Examples of simple radio control systems are garage door openers and keyless entry systems for vehicles, in which a smal ...

unmanned aerial vehicles An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

. The company is located in Moormerland, Leer District, in

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

History

Started in 2006 by Holger Buss and Ingo Busker, MikroKopter used a team of pilots to develop within 6 months a platform with great stability, manoeuvrability and powerful enough to lift a payload of several kilograms. Further developments, which incorporated an onboard

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

, piezo

gyroscope A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rota ...

, an

acceleration sensor An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is accele ...

and a

barometric sensor An altimeter or an altitude meter is an instrument used to measure the altitude of an object above a fixed level. The measurement of altitude is called altimetry, which is related to the term bathymetry, the measurement of depth under water. The m ...

for altitude control, made

autonomous flight Vehicular automation involves the use of mechatronics, artificial intelligence, and multi-agent systems to assist the operator of a vehicle (car, aircraft, watercraft, or otherwise).Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Lanzon, A.,Group Coordinated Control o ...

possible and improved manoeuvrability.

Products

MikroKopter produce various multi-rotor models such as QuadroKopter (a

quadcopter A quadcopter or quadrotor is a type of helicopter with four Helicopter rotor, rotors. Although quadrotor helicopters and convertiplanes have long been flown experimentally, the configuration remained a curiosity until the arrival of the moder ...

), HexaKopter and OktoKopter. The design lends itself to computer control and robotics researchers at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

have developed a program to control swarms of what they term 'Nano Quadrotors'.

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly t ...

cameras provide feedback on position to the controlling computer, permitting complex manoeuvres that include tumbling. Parent HiSystems GmbH has developed a built-in LEA-6S GPS receiver, u-blox’ highest-performance GPS module for MikroKopter aircraft that allows precision positioning for photography and other applications.

Operational use

In February 2012 an animal rights group used a MikroKopter to film hunters shooting pigeons in South Carolina. The hunters shot the drone down.Zimmerman, Dan (18 February 2013
Hunters Shoot SHARK Drone Over South Carolina
The Truth about Guns, Retrieved 5 February 2013

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.mikrokopter.de Companies based in Lower Saxony Unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturers of Germany Helicopter manufacturers of Germany German brands