Quadrotor History


Quadrotors have found widespread use in a large variety of applications including image/video capturing, optical inspection, video surveillance, and precision farming. The technology has reached an impressive level of performance and robustness and several high-tech companies are providing a large variety of quadrotors tailored for spare time and professional applications. Most of these companies entered the quadrotor market between 2004 and 2014.

However, the history of radio-controlled quadrotors with four electric propulsion units as the only actuators for control of the air vehicle can be traced back to 1989 when the Keyence Gyrosaucer E-170 was launched in Japan.

This website collects early quadrotor prototypes developed by the author starting in 1996 and further related projects, prototypes and products in this field.

Early Quadrotor projects and prototypes

1996 : X-Copter, Wolfgang Niehsen, Germany
1999 : GizmoCopter, Flight Control Team of the Experimental Rocket Propulsion Society (ERPS), USA
2003 : Smartflyer, Hartmut Kaak, Germany
2004 : STARMAC I, Gabe Hoffmann, USA

Quadrotor suppliers

1989 : Gyrosaucer, Keyence, Japan
1999 : Roswell Flyer, Area Fifty One Technologies (AFOT), USA
1999 : Draganfly, Canada
2004 : Silverlit, Hong Kong
2005 : AirRobot, Germany
2005 : Microdrones, Germany
2007 : Ascending Technologies, Germany
2008 : HiSystems, Germany
2010 : Parrot, France
2012 : DJI, China
2014 : Yuneec, China

X-Copter (XC) & Quadrotor (QR) & Dualrotor (DR) Gallery

First frame (1996)

XC v0 (1999)

XC v1 (2004)

XC v2 (2005)

XC v3 (2008)
xc_tf xc_v0 xc_v1 xc_v2 xc_v3
First test frame designed for conventional brushed (Speed 700) DC direct drives. X-Copter v0 with Styrodur frame and brushed (Speed 400) DC direct drives. X-Copter v1 with carbon fiber frame, DC gear drives and piezoelectric gyroscopes. X-Copter v2 with shrinked carbon fiber frame, DC gear drives and MEMS sensors. X-Copter v3 with aluminium frame, brushless drives and MEMS sensors.

QR v1lpc (2014)

QR v3 (2017)

QR v5 (2019)

QR v3lpc (2021)

DR v1rpi (2024)
qr_v1 qr_v3 qr_v5 mr_v3 dr_v1
QR with H-shape aluminium frame, brushless drives, MEMS sensors, GPS and NXP LPC2148 controller. QR with 450-frame, AGM MT2216 BLDCs, FVT LittleBee ESCs, MEMS sensors, u-blox GPS receiver, and dual NXP LPC2148 / TI OMAP3503 controller. QR with aluminium frame, AGM MT2216 BLDCs, FVT LittleBee ESCs, MEMS sensors, u-blox GPS receiver, and triple NXP LPC2148 (400Hz low-level flight control) / TI OMAP3503 (high-level flight control) / TI OMAP3503 (video processing) controller. QR with 450-frame, AGM MT2216 BLDCs, FVT LittleBee ESCs, MEMS sensors, u-blox GPS receiver, and single NXP LPC2148 (240Hz flight control) controller. DR with aluminium frame, SUNNYSKY X4108S-9 BLDCs, FVT LittleBee 30A ESCs, MEMS sensors, u-blox GPS receiver, and Raspberry Pi 3B+ (250Hz flight control) controller.
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