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

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

unmanned aerial vehicles An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Dron ...

. The company is located in

Moormerland Moormerland is a municipality in the Leer (district), Leer District, in Lower Saxony, northwestern Germany. History Moormerland was created on January 1, 1973 by uniting eleven independent municipalities. The eleven constituent Ortschaft, Ortsc ...

, Leer District, in

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

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) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...

, piezo

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

, an

acceleration sensor An accelerometer is a device that measures the proper acceleration of an object. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of the object relative to an observer who is in free fall (that is, relative to an inertia ...

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 A quadcopter, also called quadrocopter, or quadrotor is a type of helicopter or multicopter that has four rotors. Although quadrotor helicopters and convertiplanes have long been flown experimentally, the configuration remained a curiosity ...

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

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

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 closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...

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