Michael W. Piasecki - President & Founder
DPI was founded in 1992 by Michael W. Piasecki. With a background in helicopters and camera stabilization techniques, Mr. Piasecki's focus for DPI was on designing and building small, cost-effective autonomous unmanned helicopters that could carry image, communication, and logistics payloads.
DPI is an industry leader in the U.S. of small rotary wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). We are recognized for our robust low-cost UAVs, their innovative rotorcraft design, our extensive testing knowledge, and successful UAV deployment. DPI UAVs are designed for tactical applications in near-earth environments, complex terrain, and restricted environments, such as urban, jungle and mountainous areas.
The company has been awarded twenty Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants. Research topics have included the following areas: precision autonomous flight, dynamic obstacle avoidance, real-time path planning, small long-range multi-mission UAV, autonomous casualty evacuations, and precision medical resupply in austere/complex environments.
DPI collaborates and teams with cutting edge researchers and organizations to help move advanced autonomy and payloads onto our UAV systems. Our partners and customers have included but are not limited to the following: U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, NASA, DARPA, BAE Systems, Boeing, Carnegie Mellon, CloudCap, General Dynamics - Land Systems, General Dynamics - Mission Systems, Isolair, L3Harris, MicroPilot, Northrop Grumman, SAIC, and Textron. DPI has also teamed with respected developers of aircraft systems and subsystems.
Clients & Partners
- Boeing
- Carnegie Mellon
- Collins Aerospace
- Compass Systems
- DARPA
- General Dynamics - Land Systems
- General Dynamics - Mission Systems
- Isolair
- L3Harris
- Lincoln Labs
- MicroPilot
- NASA
- Northrop Grumman
- SAFRAN
- Sarnoff Labs
- U.S. Army
- U.S. Marine Corps
- U.S. Navy