BMV drone network meeting at Emqopter in Würzburg
On October 16, 2025, drone manufacturer Emqopter in Würzburg, Germany, hosted the first drone network meeting of the Federal Ministry of Transport (BMV) as part of the M-Fund accompanying research.
Under the motto “Experience innovation live,” more than 100 professional visitors from politics, science, business, and the German Armed Forces gathered at Emqopter in Würzburg to discuss the latest developments, opportunities, and challenges in unmanned aviation. The focus was on how drone technologies – from urban air mobility to transport and logistics to monitoring and inspection applications – can be integrated safely, efficiently, and sustainably into existing structures.
After a welcome by Dr. Jan Dirks, advisor at the Federal Ministry of Defense, and Dr. Nils Gageik, managing director of Emqopter, several keynote speeches offered practical insights into current projects and research results:
The first keynote speeches of the day dealt with the topic of “Drones for Transport and Logistics.” Michael Witting Schipper from Hamburg Aviation and Lukas Ostermann from Karl Koerschulte presented a blueprint for drone traffic management.
Fabian Baader from Fly-xdrive then explained the central role that drones can play in the transport of medical goods. Marvin Bihl, Managing Director of Emqopter, showed in his presentation how artificial intelligence is driving the autonomy of drones as a key technology.
Katrin Birgy from DHL/European Air Transport Leipzig explained drone-based aircraft inspection in her presentation. Andreas Hecker from the Technical University of Dresden then presented on the topic of “Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone flights.” Mirco Alpen from Helmut Schmidt University (HSU) of the German Armed Forces in Hamburg concluded the event by presenting the use of drones for technical inspection.
Live demonstrations of current drone technology
The live demonstrations of modern drone systems and current research projects, which provided an opportunity for professional exchange and new networking, aroused particular interest. One highlight was the presentation of the world's first drone port on the roof of Emqopter's headquarters, which was met with great enthusiasm by the audience.
The DNED and MISDRO projects, which were developed in close cooperation between Emqopter and Helmut Schmidt University, also attracted a great deal of attention. Both projects are developing specific applications for the use of drone technology in the context of the German Armed Forces.
While DNED aims at the autonomous inspection of high-voltage power lines, MISDRO focuses on automated bridge inspection to detect stability problems and damage. Both projects provide important insights for the so-called dual-use environment, i.e., the combined civil and military use of unmanned aerial systems.
The event focused on the M-Fund project Isekis, a joint project between Emqopter, Swift GmbH, and RWTH Aachen University, which deals with autonomous navigation independent of GPS. The aim is to detect material fatigue and possible failures at an early stage, enable preventive maintenance measures, and use a flight data recorder to document the work of the AI and potential hardware or operating errors in an audit-proof manner.
About Emqopter
Emqopter is a company in the field of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) based in Würzburg. The company develops drone technologies for teaching and research, transport, and logistics and specializes in solutions for individual applications.
About the BMV's M-Fund funding program
As part of the M-Fund funding program, the BMDV has been supporting research and development projects related to data-based digital innovations for the mobility of the future since 2016. Project funding is supplemented by active professional networking between stakeholders from politics, business, administration, and research, and the provision of open data on the M-Cloud.
