News

The Israeli military is experimenting with a futuristic Frisbee-size unmanned aerial vehicle called the Mosquito. It is designed to fly into buildings through doors and windows and hover in mid-air, taking pictures with its miniature video camera, then fly out again and show soldiers what it saw inside.

The brains of the Mosquito, as with all unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), is a tiny electronic circuit board called an autopilot that controls the flight and the camera. The Mosquito's autopilot comes from Winnipeg-based MicroPilot Inc., a leader in a suddenly hot market.

"It's a pretty scary proposition in a lot of battlefield situations for soldiers to walk into a building," says MicroPilot founder and chief technology officer Howard Loewen. There could be enemy soldiers inside, or booby traps or noxious gases. "That's what UAVs are mainly all about right now," Mr. Loewen says, "saving soldiers' lives."

UAVs, also called drones, have been around for years, but they're a hot commodity today thanks to technological advances -- and to conflicts in such places as Iraq and Afghanistan that have boosted military spending. Drones are used for aerial reconnaissance and even bombing missions. The Canadian military in Afghanistan uses a camera-equipped, low-flying drone called the Sperwer to spot Taliban insurgents before sending in troops.

MicroPilot designs autopilots mainly for smaller UAVs, including backpack-able models -- some launched by bungee cord -- that soldiers can carry into battle and fly over hills or around buildings to see what's on the other side before advancing. "The small and mini UAV [segment] is where we dominate," says Lisa Shaw, the company's director of communications.

The autopilot incorporates a GPS receiver, altimeter and other sensors. It connects to airframe controls such as engine, ailerons and flaps, and to the vehicle's "payload," which almost always includes a camera but could also include sensors that could detect poisonous gases, for example, or even nuclear fallout.

A human pilot programs the autopilot for a mission using MicroPilot's PC-based Horizon software, keying in map co-ordinates, altitude settings and other parameters. The vehicle typically flies out, performs its tasks and flies back, landing on its belly. Having it return to base could give away a military position to the enemy, however, so some vehicles transmit their information, including video images, over a radio link and then crash.

"We're talking about devices that cost about $150,000," Mr. Loewen says. "In military terms, they're expendable."

The human pilot can alter a mission in mid-flight by sending commands over a radio link, but UAVs are rarely designed like hobbyist model airplanes to be controlled by a joystick, Ms. Shaw says. For one thing, in the majority of applications, the vehicle is out of sight of its human pilot most of the time.

MicroPilot's key advantage against competitors, of which there are few, is that its autopilots are incredibly tiny. The flagship MP2028g product weighs just 28 grams -- less than an ounce -- and measures 10 by 4 centimetres. "[The nearest competitors'] is four times the weight of ours," Mr. Loewen says. "That's significant in the design of a small UAV."

The company's other advantage is that because its mostly American competitors supply the U.S. military, their products become controlled goods, making it more difficult for them to sell in foreign markets. MicroPilot has sold to the Canadian military and to customers in the U.S., including NASA, but much of its business comes from overseas. It has more than 300 customers in 49 countries.

Mr. Loewen, an electrical engineer by training and flyer by avocation, started the company five years ago. He had been working for the family payroll services firm but also pursued hobby projects, including developing a UAV tow plane for launching gliders. That project came to nothing, but the autopilot technology he developed for it formed the core of MicroPilot's intellectual property.

Financed entirely with private funds, the company has been profitable virtually since it began selling, Mr. Loewen says. Annual revenue today is in the $2.5-million range and still growing. MicroPilot employs about 25 people.

A few factors have contributed to its modest success. First, the company arrived on the scene at an opportune time, just as the military was becoming more interested in UAVs. MicroPilot sells 30 to 40 per cent of its product directly to the military or to military contractors and an additional 10 per cent to universities and other organizations funded by the military. The favourable Canadian currency exchange rate also helped.

Mr. Loewen also recognized early on the role the Internet could play in selling niche products like his in a global market, and he made sure his company got prominent positioning in Internet search engines.

"Today when engineers are designing a product and looking for the bits and pieces they need, they turn as a matter of course to the Internet," Mr. Loewen says. "I can't imagine us being as successful [if we'd started] 15 years ago. I don't know how we'd find customers or how they'd find us."

Though the market continues to grow, it's overheated and over-hyped, says Mr. Loewen, who was a finalist in the Ernst & Young 2004 Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. "Once the situation in Iraq settles down," he says, "I think people will be more realistic about their expectations [of UAVs]."

The Mosquito project, for example, may be a little far off. Most of the testing is still being done outdoors, Mr. Loewen says.

"[Flying inside buildings] is a long term goal, and it's a goal that will be achieved at some point," he says. "But it's not something we'll see in the near term."

The UAV market won't necessarily dry up when the world's hot spots cool down, however. The vehicles are also being used in environmental and weather research, Mr. Loewen says.

Several departments at NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the U.S., use MicroPilot products. In one well-documented mission, a MicroPilot-controlled NASA UAV flew over the inaccessible Iturralde crater in the Bolivian Amazon. The objective was to determine whether the unusual formation was created by a meteor or comet. The UAV carried a magnetometer to read the magnetic signature in the crater.

"I think in the small UAV area, there are lot of applications that haven't even been tried yet," Mr. Loewen says. One new customer is working on a project that involves taking aerial photos for agricultural use, to track cattle. "UAVs can be useful almost any time you have to go out and get data."