Flying high

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/12/2002 (8670 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last July, Paul Chambers spent seven exciting days as part of a research team on the NASA Haughton Mars Project on Devon Island — located 2,843 kilometres north of Winnipeg and 372 kilometres southeast of the magnetic North Pole.

The 26-year-old senior technician for MicroPilot, a Manitoba-based company that designs autopilots, using off-the-shelf components, for miniature unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), was responsible for operating three MicroPilot-customized UAVs to take video images of Devon Island’s large crater site.

The UAVs were piloted by MicroPilot’s current product the MP2000 which weighs about six ounces when all of its “connectors” are attached. It can fit into a five-pound UAV.

The MP2000, which is essentially “the brain” of a UAV, takes the plane off and flies it to a series of locations that have been pre-programmed by the operator, all the while maintaining a pre-programmed altitude. Once it has finished its task, the UAV returns to its starting point.

Although autopilots have been around for years in the aviation industry, especially on board large passengers airliners, the MP2000 is the first autopilot small enough to fly a five-pound airplane, notes Howard Loewen, president of MicroPilot.

“My visit to Devon Island was probably the most interesting assignment that I’ve had,” said Chambers as he sat at his computerized work station on the second floor of the company’s new 40-acre, 10,000-square-foot headquarters — which includes offices, production area, observation deck and an outdoor test flight range — on Sturgeon Road in Stony Mountain, about 20 minutes northeast of Winnipeg.

“The terrain on the island and in Haughton Crater itself is unlike anything I have ever seen — mostly rolling hills of rock and gravel broken up by gullies and riverbeds, with nearly non-existent plant or animal life. Every one of the 30 or so researchers and camp staff could be described as being enthusiastic and dedicated people. There was a definite feeling of community at the camp, and it was great to be a part of it.”

It just goes to show that a local high-tech company can be part of a NASA project that, as a MicroPilot publication states, is “out of this world” — or, at least, is the closest thing to Martian terrain on Earth.

Loewen notes that the idea for miniature, computerized autopilots first came to him back in 1995 while practising his hobby — flying gliders.

“The gliders are very efficient, but the tow planes aren’t,” says Loewen.

He set out to find a way to pilot a tow plane without having a human on board, which would make the plane lighter and more efficient. Loewen has not yet solved that challenge, but his work did lead to the development of autopilots for smaller craft.

“It was one of those accidental things (musing about tow plane efficiency) that have branched off in another direction.”

Loewen, 41, the son of Winnipeg businessman Bill Loewen — founder of Comcheq and now the Chairman of TelPay, Inc. — began working on the concept in his spare time.

“Then, I started working on it full-time at home in the basement. I’d been doing a lot of very rewarding management work with Comcheq, but I missed working in the engineering design field,” says the graduate of the University of Waterloo, who has a BSc in electrical engineering and a MSc in computer science/applied mathematics.

“The first thing I had to do was learn to be an aeronautical engineer from engineering texts. Then I started writing the software and designed it with a simulator to do the testing on the ground, and then put together the first iteration on a board three and a half years ago.”

Loewen mentions that a local company, Iders, was able to turn that initial prototype into something that could be manufactured.

“I put together a Web site and did some work with a search engine placement and then orders started to arrive from the U.S. mostly, but also from Europe and Canada. The Internet is a good tool for a specialized company like us,” he said.

From the start, MicroPilot’s products have been compact and lightweight.

The MP2000 has flown a wide range of UAVs — from two-pound micro UAVs used by the U.S. military to high-speed turbine powered drones, says Loewen.

“While NASA is our highest-profile customer, we also sell our product worldwide to academic, military, and private research institutions as well as to UAV manufacturers,” says Loewen. The company also provides integration support and contract engineering for autopilot installations.

Last year, MicroPilot gained significant recognition at the 2001 International Aerial Robotics Competition in Maryland. The event is an international collegiate competition that challenges participants to design computerized aircraft capable of accomplishing a predefined mission without any outside operator assistance, according to an article in the January 2002 Model Airplane News. A team from the Georgia Institute of Technology took the lead in the ongoing competition using the MP2000 system in a fixed-wing UAV.

While there are a couple of companies in the world building similar products, none are as sophisticated as the MP2000, says Dave Wakeman, business development manager of MicroPilot.

“And we’re the only one in full production in the world,” he emphasized

MicroPilot has sold about 500 units in the U.S. in the past two years at a cost of $5,000 (US) each, he says.

Loewen, whose company employs 13 people, says MicroPilot is all self-funded from within his family and with sweat equity.

“We’re fortunate our product has a good margin, so we can fund our continuing research and development from our sales.”