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 negati ...

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. The company is located in

Moormerland Moormerland is a municipality in the Leer District, in Lower Saxony, northwestern Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after ...

, Leer District, in Lower Saxony.

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 and a barometric sensor for altitude control, made autonomous flight possible and improved manoeuvrability.

Products

MikroKopter produce various multi-rotor models such as QuadroKopter (a quadcopter), HexaKopter and OktoKopter. The design lends itself to computer control and robotics researchers at the University of Pennsylvania 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