Innovative engineering in small companies has been responsible for many of today’s unmanned aerial vehicle developments in the U.S. One such company is Cloud Cap Technology, based in Hood River, Oregon. It provides low-cost autopilots and gimbals to a variety of small, mostly unmanned platforms. It was started by two pilot-engineers when they left another young company, located just across the Colombia River that divides Oregon from Washington state. That other company is Insitu, which developed the Scan Eagle UAV. And just as Insitu’s unique capabilities were snapped up by Boeing, Cloud Cap was bought in 2009 by a much larger aerospace firm that sees synergies–in this case, Goodrich.
“Cloud Cap developed the algorithms to produce a very versatile and highly integrated autopilot,” explained Jim Siekkinen, a Goodrich ISR Systems manager who became operations director at Hood River facility. The Piccolo flight management system provides a small but complete off-the-shelf package, including flight sensors, navigation, wireless communication and payload interfaces. Several different software configurations are available, as is a basic flight planning option as a free download.
