Issue 39 Unmanned Systems Technology August/September 2021 Maritime Robotics Mariner l Simulation tools focus l MRS MR-10 and MR-20 l UAVs insight l HFE International GenPod l Exotec Skypod l Autopilots focus l Aquaai Mazu

18 M oving with his family to a farm in the Swedish countryside at the age of 8, Niklas Nyroth, now 49 and the CEO of Robot Aviation, found himself living next to a field from where hobbyists flew radio-controlled model aircraft. This was the beginning of a lifelong involvement with unmanned systems that has been characterised by hands-on learning rather than formal academic qualifications, and punctuated by increasingly senior engineering positions with UAV companies including Mission Technologies, GECI, Schiebel, Cybaero and Black Light Aircraft before helping to form Robot Aviation to develop the FX450. His experiences of helping out on the farm steeped him in a culture of maintaining and repairing equipment and hands-on technical self-reliance. This he transferred to building his own RC aircraft from parts salvaged from discarded wrecks and teaching himself to fly them. As a 12-year-old, in 1984, he won a competition to design and build the smallest flying RC model in Sweden. Having left school at 15 to work with RC models and old cars, the break that got him into the professional UAV industry came in 1991 when he was approached by a helicopter operator to build target drones that were to be controlled from a manned aircraft and would mimic fast-moving Russian military hovercraft to provide the Swedish Navy’s coastal artillery with target practice. Success in extending the control range and automating the drones’ flight led to a three-year stint from 1994 as a consultant to the Swedish Armed Forces that involved meeting with many international UAV manufacturers and trying out their systems. It also led to a job offer from Mission Technologies in San Antonio, Texas. The decade he spent at that company encompassed the development of the Buster, a 5 kg backpack UAV with a 9 hour endurance and EO/IR payloads for the US Special Operations Command. This period is hard to beat as a technological learning experience, he says, thanks largely to working in partnership with engineers from the South West Research Institute, NASA and the US Army’s Night Vision Laboratory. The Buster was also the project that gave him the most satisfaction in his pre-Robot Aviation career, “because we developed the full system from nothing, but with a lot of help from our partners, including the structure, propulsion, avionics and logistics, which were all developed by Mission Technologies under my management”. Learning from mentors Mentors have been very important to Nyroth in his development as an engineer. “Lacking a formal education, I have learned so much from people around me.” The two who stand out, he says, are Tom Finch and Tom Turner, both from his Texas days. Another self-taught engineer, the late Tom Finch pioneered the application of thrust reversers to airliners, leading design work on the reversers and related mechanical systems, nacelle drag reduction and noise reduction. He also helped Nyroth with many landing gear designs for larger UAVs. Tom Turner began his career on the shop floor at Vickers Supermarine during the development of the Spitfire, moving to Robot Aviation’s CEO talks to Peter Donaldson about the experiences that have informed his approach to UAV engineering Hands-on UAV man August/September 2021 | Unmanned Systems Technology The FX450 is being adapted for maritime surveillance and comms missions, in which the integration of multiple transceivers challenges engineers to eliminate mutual interference with careful positioning of modules and use of materials (Courtesy of Robot Aviation)