WDS 22: the Belgian drone manufacturer Sky-Hero is attacking new markets

Few companies offer drones capable of operating in a closed environment. Even rarer are those that have had lasting success with renowned defense and security users. The Belgian Sky-Hero is one of them. After making a name for itself in the United States and Europe, this Brussels company is now trying its luck in the Middle East. Meeting with its president, Yves Coppye, during the World Defense Show organized this week in Saudi Arabia.

It took less than ten years for Sky-Hero to become a benchmark in the small robotics segment. What are the origins of such success?

Sky-Hero was founded in 2013 and was active in cyber until 2015. Europe then saw a wave of terrorist attacks. I had been working personally with special forces units for several years. These units came to us asking for a helping hand. By listening to their needs, we developed a first generation of drones, the Loki Mk 1. It took us a year, the design being carried out in close collaboration with users. We spent a lot of time in the field to understand their needs.

The first marketable version of the Loki appeared in 2016 and was presented in Oslo to the Atlas group, which then organized a workshop on indoor drones, which corresponded to a new need expressed following the attacks that occurred shortly before. Our solution won hands down the tests organized during this workshop and it is the start of a new adventure for Sky-Hero. We stopped development towards the general public to concentrate on civil protection.  

Sky-Hero received a helping hand from the Walloon region. In 2019, we also benefited from an investment of €2 million granted by the Belgian government through the Federal Participation and Investment Company (SFPI).

The marketing of the Loki Mk 1 was a great success, with twenty countries equipped in Europe. And then we were introduced to the United States by the FBI, which was then engaged in a program to acquire indoor drones. At the time, he planned to purchase modified DJI drones, an option which was abandoned after we presented our solution to them. The Americans bought the Loki Mk 1 drone, we trained them and, with the FBI as the standard bearer, other doors opened.

A year later, we met Parrot and explained our needs and the technical solutions we were missing. Parrot has decided to collaborate with us, invest in our company and share technological building blocks. A team of engineers was then set up in Paris and Brussels to create the second generation of the Loki system. This was marketed from 2020 and has since fitted even more units. It is in fact much easier to pilot, has more intelligence on board, maintains its position regardless of the conditions and does not need GPS or Wifi. Today we equip all of Europe and all American federal agencies.

We are also starting to equip the American Department of Defense thanks to a contract awarded to the special forces of the US Marine Corps. They are now deploying our system in operation. We have supplied the Special Forces Group (SF Gp) of the Belgian Defense and are also starting to collaborate with special forces units of the French army. In total, we equip approximately 1,000 assault teams or units worldwide, each with one to ten systems.

You are one of only two Belgian companies to have traveled to Saudi Arabia, how do you explain your presence at the World Defense Show  ?  

Now that we are well deployed in Europe and the United States, the company's objective this year is to expand to new markets. For example, we are not present at all in the Middle East. Attending a trade show is a good way to understand local needs and meet a distributor. Because, at Sky-Hero, we do not sell the product directly. We take care of support and training and leave the commercial relay to a local partner, which is also the case in Belgium.

The interest is extremely strong, that's for sure. But small robotics education is very different from what we encounter in Europe and the United States. Middle Eastern countries are a few years behind and there will undoubtedly still be awareness work to be done to penetrate the market.

Coming back to the French market, can you detail the clients and their specificities?

We equip the special forces of the three armies and those of the internal security forces. RAID and GIGN are our best ambassadors in this regard. They were among the first users of the first generation of Loki and now use the second generation extensively.

The Loki Mk 2 micro-drone, element among others in the ecosystem designed by Sky-Hero

Should we wait for a Loki Mk 3?

Of course, but I can't tell you the specifics of this third generation. The Loki Mk 2, on the other hand, has the other particularity of being integrated into a real ecosystem. We know that in an assault column, there is a “tech” specialist equipped with multiple systems to provide audiovisual information to the rest of the team and to command. However, today all this equipment is not natively designed to work together. Each has its own communication interface, its own screen, its own batteries. What we are proposing is therefore a single interface installed on the GCS Mk 2 portable control station to control all the equipment provided by Sky-Hero, which is the Loki drone, the Sigyn light robot, a camera -pole and all accessories designed to “plug” into it thanks to the universal carrying system.

All 100% “in-house”, therefore without dependence on Chinese or American suppliers?

Absolutely, we do not depend on any third party. The mechanical design, hardware and software developments are carried out in-house before being assembled in Vilnius, Lithuania. Each system has its independent assembly line. The assembled products are then repatriated to Brussels to compose the complete kits and check their proper functioning on test routes with a view to their delivery.

To meet the needs of the American army, we had to develop our own camera. The model used until then was manufactured in China according to our specifications. Although it does not record data and has passed all the qualification thresholds imposed by the American customer, we spent six months to design a new front camera 100% made in Belgium.

At the heart of the Sky-Hero “environment”, a unique remote control to operate

the Loki Mk 2 and its terrestrial counterpart, the light robot Sigyn Mk 1

Between France, Lithuania and Belgium, Sky-Hero currently represents how many employees? What is your annual progress and what are your prospects in terms of activity?

Today, Sky-Hero employs just over twenty people in Brussels. We are growing, we are constantly recruiting but it is not easy to find the right profiles in Belgium. We have a “software” team in France, recently expanded by a “hardware” team which focuses on electronic cards. That is, five people in France. And then in Lithuania, the volume is variable because it depends on the pace of production. The factory in which we have installed our assembly lines provides us with qualified employees as needed. This can vary from 10 people to 50 or even 80 people if it becomes necessary to mass produce.

In terms of turnover, we are progressing every year. From 2020 to 2021, we progressed by 100% and we project the same result for this year. Sky-Hero is a company that is doing well, is no longer losing money and is recruiting. We hope to hire at least 10 senior profiles this year, the number of junior profiles considered depending on the projects in progress and their maturity rate. We have just recruited two seniors.

Your systems evolve, adapt and integrate new capabilities. Do you still have any technical obstacles to overcome?

Currently, I think we are responding well to the needs of internal security forces, which in particular have fairly short deployment times. The military, on the other hand, are deployed for several months abroad so operational maintenance must be thought of in a completely different way. This is first of all what we must work on, either by training maintainers or by providing localized support through a distributor who is well educated in this type of constraint.

Secondly, we must address extremely demanding military standards, military certifications, for example in terms of system hardening. We already answer a large part in the sense that we exclude any component of Chinese, American or Russian origin.