Is THIS the Most Versatile Aircraft Design? (Forward Flight Testing) - Part 2
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- čas přidán 5. 06. 2024
- In part 1 of this series, we explored this unique drone concept and demonstrated a more efficient way for a multirotor drone to fly by essentially turning itself into a tip-jet helicopter. In this video, we take it a step further and try out fast forward flight.
Patreon: / nicholasrehm
Part 1 - The Spinning Drone Paradox: • The Spinning Drone Par...
AIR Lab’s Transformable HOvering Rotorcraft (THOR): • SUTD Transformable HOv...
In the drone world, there’s a bit more flexibility in aircraft design since we don’t have to worry about carrying a human payload. A classic multirotor converted to a tip-propelled design with the addition of rotor blades mounted on rotating arms is the perfect way to drastically increase hovering efficiency with the only downside being the fast rotation rate of the whole vehicle. This may pose an immediate challenge to integrating a camera payload, but there are plenty of other applications too. With some small design trade-offs, it is even possible to fly like an airplane in forward flight using the same wings used to increase hovering efficiency. This is what makes this particular drone concept so versatile: the simplicity and agility of a multirotor, hovering efficiency of a helicopter, and increased range and efficiency of fast forward flight. While it may not be the most efficient in forward flight, it is still an improvement over a conventional drone. In the next video, we’ll expand this vehicle’s abilities even further by adding intuitive directional control as it spins at over 250 RPM--so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it!
00:00 Intro
01:31 Collecting Forward Flight Data
02:31 Potential Applications
03:50 Forward Flight Data
04:25 Comparison to Hover Power
05:34 Conclusions and CRASH
#VTOL #Drone #Tricopter
New channel motto: Fly It Till You Crash It
360 cam ?
Perfect
Thank you for this video and update of that interesting project. Your motto is similar to that of ham radio amateurs: if the antenna system survived the winter, it was too small! Greetings from Hamburg/Germany, Dietmar, DL4HAO ;)
.... and then rebuild better with the knowledge on why you crashed. ... Why did it crash?
@@gutrali lost my orientation!!
Builds full size human carrying one: throws up during take off
That’s a risk I’m willing for you to take 😉
@@NicholasRehm shrek reference? Btw awesome drone.
guy at amazingdiyprojects channel wants to build similar three-blade(three-wing?) aircraft, capable of carrying few people. He's already testing scale model with like 4m rotor diameter (or wing span? idfk how to call it)
Oh I bet a gyro-stabilization like the one a B-wing has would, work perfectly fine. 👍
You could probably have some sort of isolation mechanism with the wings rotating around the cockpit structure rather than the whole thing rotating the pilot
One way of avoiding the vertical surface which provides no lift but adds drag would be to switch to a quad-rotor design. If instead of spacing the wings 120º apart, you space them 60º, 120º, 60º, 120º you'd end up with kind of a biplane configuration in forward flight, with all wings providing lift.
As a Bonus it would look like a bit like an x-wing :D
blah blah blah blah, X-WING!!!!!!!!
With the quad rotor style the lift component wouldn't be vertical as would be perpendicular to wing surface, so you are losing a decent amount of lift and as such I'm not sure it would be worthwhile as you will still increase drag.
But since you bring up x-wing, why not rotate the wings similar to flat (ftl) and x (combat) mode for the x-wing :D
@@gillo100 you'd have the lower wings at -30° from horizontal as now, and another pair above at +30° from horizontal
That would be the same as having a vertical surface the same size as your horizontal surfaces.
I want to see this
I do wonder how efficient 'spinning while in horizontal flight' might be on this! it would definetly be interesting to see
I would think it would require some major fly by wire compute power to controlled flight. With your x and y changing constantly it would be very hard to know what way is up.
It'd probably lose all its lift, so probably not very efficient.
@@Dragonsrage012 he currently has the lidar pointed radially downward between the bottom 2 rotors, but if he had it pointed backward, he could use that to measure altitude when flying at high angles of attack. It might be usable for lower angles of attack, but it would be more susceptible to noise from obstructions on the ground...
If you started a business of selling kits for building these with instructions, I would totally buy it! I love drones and this one looks like it's a lot of fun. Keep it up man! You're awesome!
As a student studying aerospace engineering this is one of the coolest and most inspiring videos pertaining to what I’ve chosen to study. Please continue pushing this boundary, you’re doing incredible work.
woohoo go aerospace
@@NicholasRehm I don't think Orville and Wilbur would've created their Flyer if they knew it would become a weapon of mass destruction.
@@UguysRnutsI think if you told them it would also completely revolutionize travel, shipping, global connectedness, etc, they'd have no issues
@@echobase6372 Do you? I don't. Most travel has no legitimate purpose. Vacations, imported delicacies and as you call it "global connectedness" is of dubious value. The aircraft manufacturers main stock in trade, by far, is building weaponry. Civil aviation is only a small fraction of the aerospace industry and even that is becoming more elitist every day. Unless you're a millionaire with your own private jet, 15 minute cities are what they're going for. Yes, the Wright's are rolling over in their graves.
@@echobase6372 Nor would the brothers Wright have proceeded so blithely had they known their invention would become the single most environmentally destructive influence on the planet.
Nothing produces more pollution or uses more fuel and for so little purpose as flying.
People who otherwise strive to reduce reuse and recycle, feel it their God given right to toss a match to a 100L drum of kerosene for their annual trip to the disneyland of their choosing.
Actually think about it.
Wow. Essentially you've created the T-16 Skyhopper, like the kind I used to bullseye womprats in when flying through Beggar's Canyon back home. Amazing that the triangle design can work flying forward like that.
Bro I keep thinking about that space ship while watching
I've been scrolling because I thought the same thing and knew someone had to have already written this comment.
I too was scrolling to see where the first Star Wars comment would be 😊
Something that could help with the drawbacks of symmetric wings could be to add flaps that could be angled down symmetrically during forward flight and with rotationally symmetry during spinning hover. You could also add a tail to help keep the craft parallel to the ground during forward flight. This is a really cool concept
Though the simpler the design, the fewer points of failure.
I think I suggested the same thing in another comment just now. Even if we’re wrong it’s interesting and nice to know that at least one other person hypothesized the same thing.
Have you considered maintaining the spin in horizontal flight? That would allow asymmetric wings for improved lift in both hover and forward flight.
As you were going through all the different applications of the drone you built, I just got more and more excited about this project. Please continue this series, as I would love to see the camera and 3d scanning versions!
Will do!
Spinning VS traditional forward flight efficiency was kind of surprising.
Absolutely amazing work you done here including your video editing/creating skills, thanks for sharing.
Crashing is sort of mandatory when embarking this kind of endeavor!
Agreed, I was a bit surprised too. Anxiously waiting for your manned version😉
And yes-crashing is the only way to force me to iterate!!
@@NicholasRehm Silly question perhaps, but have you tried to fly the craft in airplane-mode with the vertical wing turned down instead of pointing up? Generally speaking I think it is much more forgiving and efficient to mess with the airflow on the high pressure side (under the wing) rather on the top side. Im thinking that there is a lot of wetted surface in the middle of the low pressure lift-distribution curve of your wing. Any how, something is off, you should be able to fly it more efficient in airplane mode then you done so far. Looking forward to what ever comes next!
I really enjoy this idea. Well done. As a fwi check out Mike Pate's Scrappy real world bush plane build. Specifically his ability to change the wing's profile while in flight to optimize the low speed vs high speed efficiency. czcams.com/video/wlwDxuxbHto/video.html Mike's an amazing design/fabricator & engineer.
@@amazingdiyprojects
The pressure difference would be non-existential. Whilst drag could be more of a culprit when near floor.
But having the tail on the top end, similar to a commercial plane, will pitch the nose up. And that is better than pitching it down.
All in all, it shouldn't make much of a difference. If he were to have the plane in forward flight, AND, start spinning now that would be detrimental to the energy used, speed, and the excess drag.
You can counter the spin with a 4th propeller spinning the opposite direction either on top, or under the central body.
Also if you modify the 3rd vertical wing, (or all 3, so that 2 are wings, and the third folds back to create a sort of tail) to fold back at the axis pivotal point, when it shifts into its horizontal flight mode, you'll reduce drag even more as the 3rd "wing" could become more of a tail, where the 3rd propeller could function as either a small tail wing, or if turned on, I believe will help to shift the Pitch of the aircraft.
Watching this build develop has been so rewarding. I love where this project is at and enjoy seeing all the use cases that have been discovered. Bravo.
I love this design, but most of all I love that you've taken it so far. Lots of experimental drone concepts don't get beyond the proof of concept or gimmick phase, but this is already so much further along and shockingly usable. Very excited to see where it goes.
Also, have you given any thought to potential folding mechanisms for the wings to enable some sort of transition to a bi-wing during forward flight, or some other configuration that would at least allow the top wing to convert to a lifting surface? I can imagine the complexity and weight of mechanisms like that would be too great to be worth it, but I can almost imagine that there might be a sweet spot or very creative way of accomplishing it in a way that's efficient.
Thanks for the kind words. We’re just getting started with these spinning drones I think, lots more to come
Great idea. Something like a double pair of scissors popped into my mind, forming like an X
I was going to comment that adding flaps could maybe help with the efficiency tradeoffs. But I'm also far less of an expert than Nicholas seems to be, so there may be a reason why that won't help (or be overly complex.)
That crash was like a eureka moment in forward flightb design. Make a hinge mechanism around were the hub broke downward. And go in the direction of forward flight transitioning that @Imnon was mentioning to incorporate. Excrement design by the way. Keep up the good whirl. 🤙
Here's an idea to test: A quad-blade design, where the top and bottom fins are slightly smaller but still articulated. It should allow for finer control than just two articulated wings with propellers, while still having the stability and efficiency of spinning hover.
incredible video quality, well done man!
what about a 4 wing design that flies forward like an x wing so all surfaces contribute to lift?
Whoa
I had the same thought, possibly with 2 pairs spaced closer together, rather than all 4 equally spaced around the perimeter. I'm assuming that having the wings at 45° above or below horizontal would greatly reduce their lift efficiency, leading to no actual gain, but that is purely assumption, I could be completely wrong.
@@timplett1 it is all about chasing the trade offs. closer spaced wings would be better for forward flight but might decrease hover efficiencies. never know until you try. Thanks for sharing your research I love this type of stuff.
I suggested that to him on Discord 3 weeks ago, but got no response.
@Tim Plett I would think 4 equally spaced for hover stability and then close them together or at least to a 30/70 split for forward flight. It would increase complexity of course
What happens if you spin the drone in forward flight? Does that just not work?
Your solution to being able to control the hover would probably be similar to allowing the whole drone to spin in forward flight. You would have to vary the speed of the props depending on what point in the overall prop rotation they are in...this would be very complicated, but also very cool.
In essence, this turns the whole thing into a helicopter rotor of sorts in the forward flight regime, no? I wonder if introducing independent wing-angle control would unlock potential to adjust blade angle, similar to the effect a swashplate has on helicopters. This might require 2 more fairly robust servos and some VERY beefy code, however.
This seems like it could be quite efficient, as you're now using the efficiency gained by the large 'rotor' to produce your forward thrust. On the other hand, I'm struggling to visualise at what point it stops acting like a high-rpm propeller (i.e, lift is just the vertical component of thrust), vs something like an aircraft doing a slow aileron roll. My gut feeling is that these are fundamentally different flight regimes, with the former scenario not really providing much of a 'wing' effect (i.e. airspeed-dependent lift). But I'm not really able to come up with a good argument as to *why* the situations differ.
@@grouchyfluff yeah I was thinking this, you would need to independantly control both the small props and the wing angle of each. Then you should be able to have some pretty good control of the lift and counteract any rotational forces which would send it off course.
You could make the code of the wing angle a little easier by having a mechanical guide which adjusted the pitch of the wing in a certain part of the rotation, the electronics could then adjust this guide which would influence the wing angle when it is at that part of the larger props rotation. To do that, you would need the center of the drone to be on a gyro and level as the reference point. Similar to what WW2 planes did to stop them from shooting their own props but that wasn't adjustable.
@@JMMC1005 yea efficiency-wise, rolling in forward flight would be equivalent to doing aileron rolls which are less efficient because some of your energy is diverted to maintaining the constant roll rate as you move forward
@@NicholasRehm Would it be quite the same, though?
In an aeroplane, your wings aren't pitched to match the roll (except for the ailerons changing the effective chord), and your propeller isn't driving the rotation like your tip props are. Would be interesting to see the numbers.
Thirty-ish years ago, when I was in high school, I drew up rough plans for an airplane shaped like this. I never built it, of course, but I was always curious if the idea had any merit. Nice to see someone else had the same idea and the ability to actually build a model to test the concept out.
Amazing Dude! Outstanding work 👏
Your ingenuity is awesome man! Keep these coming! Would love to see how you solve the problem of position control while spinning!
Thanks for the kind words, we’ll see if I can pull it off
The spinning hover could also be good for non-visable optical or radar sensing. Lots of times it's way cheaper to get point and line sensors for odd optical frequencies.
Been watching this project for quite some time, so amazing 🤩. Keep up the incredible work!
That's a fantastic project! Here's something I noticed.
As is during forward flight your two bottom 'wings' are oriented in a way which creates anhedral.
As well, the vertical surface raises the center of gravity higher, thus contributing to lateral imbalance.
I'm thinking if you were to program it to fly with that middle wing facing down, the flight controller won't have to fight balance issues because you now have a lower center of gravity and dihedral.
But then it won't look like an imperial shuttle anymore ... hmm .. trade-offs ...
This is so cool.
What a cool concept. Two thumbs up!!
Dude, I can only say....this is too cool! I think you have hit on a great idea and further exectution for a new multipurpose airborne vehicle! So many uses for this!! Keep the vid's coming! I wanna see what you do next! Cheers!
these ideas are super cool! loving where this project is going
Have you flown it in a "Y" orientation in forward flight? Any major difference from the "λ" orientation? I would imagine it would be more inherently stable.
Without a tail that would create some gnarly pendulum effects. The A orientation is more stable once flight speed is achieved. We dont have to worry about stalling or stability with such good thrust vectoring.
@@Dudeman9339 I had no idea those two orientations had different performances, thanks for explaining that bit
bro got the half life logo
@@Ezio-Auditore94 Hilarious. A troll replies with speculation disguised as knowledge and you thank him!
@@UguysRnuts You provided no argument and expect me to believe you, lol. What's more you're being agressive without provocation, typical of a troll. I really don't get why your butt hurts so much
One of the coolest flying machines Ive ever seen. DIY!!! Amazing buddy!
Excellent video. The presentation of the information was straight forward and well presented.
Maybe a possibility to increase efficiency is to have separately angled wings. So forward flight you can increase / decrease the lift and keep the props more in a level state.
Or a wing that can bend and make an airfoil? PS I am sitting behind a keyboard so obviously I know everything! lol
@@Ignaz366 Man I only flown a paper plane before so I am an expert too.
Wow, this is an incredible concept and cleverly implemented.
I have one suggestion for improving energy efficiency during forward flight that would hopefully have little or no impact on spinning hover efficiency and potentially better non-spinning hover. And that would be a four wing configuration with two long wings and two short wings, each with a thruster. During non-spinning hover, if you use the same propeller and motor combination you will have four rather than three props, and thus have a larger disk area, and thus reduced power for a given total thrust. But this will also potentially make the drone heavier, and so that would require more thrust. So I am not certain that it will reduce total power compared to your current symmetrical three rotor design. Only design will tell.
During spinning hover, the long wings will provide most of the lift while the two short wings will add some. If the total area or at least the wing loading stays the same as the three wing design, I would think that power required for spinning hover will be at least very similar. As with non-spinning hover, if the total weight goes up, then power required could go up.
The big change should come during forward flight. The two long wings will be horizontal with their lift vector parallel to the gravity vector and so yield a higher L/D for a given wing area and CL than the Y-wing with the lifting wings at 30 degrees to the horizontal.
Also the total area of the two short wings could be less than the one large wing wing that is vertical during forward flight in you Y-wing. The length of the two short wings would be determined by the required moment arm required to produce the necessary pitching moment using differential thrust from the two propulsors on the short wings. Differential thrust on the two long wings would provide the necessary yaw control and differential pitching of the two long wings would provide an awesome amount of roll control. Since pitch is not coming from aerodynamic lift, the area of the two short wings is not a factor and so can be very small. In fact in the limit the wing chord could be just long enough to provide a clean aerodynamic shape around the rods providing the structural strength. In this case lift in spinning hover would come almost entirely from the two long wings.
As for your potential applications, I like your idea of providing a relay between widely separated locations on the ground. Another could be between a ground controller and another drone that is operating beyond line of sight. One use could be powerline and pipeline inspection where one drone either flies in spinning hover in line of sight to the controller to provide control relay to the second drone with the camera and/or other sensors flying in horizontal mode along the powerline/pipeline.
I am glad I found your videos :) Showing and explaining the math calculations is the best part!
Awesome, Terrific Design, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!
Would love to see you develop this more.. maybe until it reaches the state of being an actual signal repeater drone that you can demonstrate out in the field. Very nice work, keep it up!
Thanks!!
It'd be interesting to plot range vs. flight time for the different modes. Fixed wing flight will probably give you better range, and you know that the endurance is best in the spinning mode. There might be a sweet spot where you can travel further in fixed wing mode, then transition for a long-endurance loiter. If designed for a particular application, it could be extremely effective!
Very cool idea! I think to "finish" and make it do everything you'll need to install a fixed pod in some fashion. Either by slip ring or some other connection to a de-rotated portion, the value of even a small de-rotated section would really enable the entire thing to work across all regimes.
I Love the Idea Of using it's spinning with the Lidar and Having it scan it's surrounding And Map out area's Like it could be used for Noticing small Batches of Spreading wild fired where there's decent Wind defusing or moving the smoke so it could fly and scan the edge constantly Drifting with the fire so it's easier to block or Stop or Burn grass in front of it so it can't spread as much Exct!
what's with the random caps buddy
Would it be feasible to make one of the fixed wings actuate and lay back at 90 degrees during forward flight to reduce drag?
I was going to suggest variable pitch on *all* of the wings, but just one would be a great start! Bet it would be an engineering nightmare though.
@@Jazucu shouldnt be too hard to trigger a linear actuator when transitioning to forward flight, either manually or via accelerometer data.
If the vertical wing was hinged at the back/bottom it would it would automatically fold back when the wings motor power is cut. Restart motor to unfold.
Very good concept, something I haven't seen before. Keep up the good work and research.
This is just so cool. Well done.
For forward flight in practice you really want to locate the minimum of energy per distance traveled, not just minimal power (energy per unit of time). It doesn't matter how little power you used if you are still nowhere near the target.
…have you considered flying with the wing geometry (post transition) in the dihedral config rather than the anhedral config? …which means you could utilise the inherent stability and achieve yawl control by thrust vectoring L/R and pitch control with the remaining motor. Also the “video capture while in rotating loiter” problem could be solved electronically for live capture and cranking up the ISO and re-framing the video post flight for post-flight capture. 🤔
Edit: Ops! I forgot, great video BTW. I watched the last one and I was immediately impressed by the elegance of the design, well done. (Be assured there are many applications for efficient drone solutions)
PS: The solution to the “rotating control” can best be dealt with by adopting a similar control method to the Cycloidal drone’s control👍😊
Super smart designs all around! Excellent work!
Great video! Love that you actually have something useful and quite efficient already in this non-refined stage.
In terms of forward-flight efficiency, I think the better measurement would be power per meter flown (or mile). Then you can compare that to the power-per-distance of a regular drone and maybe a bi-wing. It will definitely be in the middle between those two, but I'd love to see how much more efficient it would be than a normal drone.
This, I think, is essential to the overall usefulness of this forward-flight mode because as you mentioned, the forward-flight mode would probably be used in a scenario where we want to fly as efficiently (and fast) as possible to a certain location.
You might improve the design further by looking into into a quad prop/arm setup with two larger wings and two shorter stubbier ones.
3:09 just use a 360° action camera. By recording in all directions, rotation can be counteracted when editing the video
But the video will suffer from motion blur
and 360 cameras have bad quality.
Well done sir, good pacing great context well spoken . Cheers.
Cool ideas, info, efficiency tests, and VTOLs. Yup, you just earned my subscription. Thanks CZcams algorithm for making this video pop up in my feed! Really cool stuff! I can’t wait for the video that shows how you fix the rotation drift problem!
Thanks! Video is in production at the moment and results are looking good
This is the coolest and does so much for re modernizing drone flight and I see air travel potential as well.
Nice! Thank you for an interesting vid
That's a pretty cool design. Good Job!
Incredibly interesting! Keep it up!
Thanks for the follow up video, just an amazing piece of work. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍🏻😃
Beautiful work
After you’re 1st part I litterally stayed up until 1am thinking about a possible version of this carrying a human
Keep up the good work. I like your idea of a cell repeat for rescue missions and the mapping function.
YES! Love this stuff!
This was very well done
Smart, love it, great work
Very nice design and video!
Simply amazing work man. Everything down to the 3D printed cone on the front that attaches with magnets! Genius!
Thanks for the kind words!
Fascinating! This merits more research!
I clicked like in the first 2 seconds of this Video, because i knew, this will be good!
Exelet work!
Very very nice work!!!!
I'm geeking out so hard right now. Using it as a relay or terrain scanner is the coolest idea ever! Please continue working on this drone
Thanks for the nice comments! There definitely be more of this design
Cool and innovative!!
Amazing! Ty 4 sharing
Just amazing!
You convinced us all subscribe with your promise of how easy it is film while spinning. I'm really looking forward to see how you do that !
Wow! This is amazing
Very impressive design.
So cool aproach and it works!
Thanks for posting the files and so on!👍
No problem!
Very cool video!
Awesome video!
Great stuff, Nick. Looking forward to seeing how you fix the position hold issue when spinning. Also, don't dismiss the 2-wing/2-prop design.
Very interesting, thanx!
Dude, you're a legend!
Rescue concept is Brilliant Lidar !!
i just graduated highschool and have had my drone license for a while now and this is exactly what i want to do. thank you @Nicholas Rehm for making such great content to inspire others my age
Congrats!!
Pretty cool to see this tests here, as even DARPA isn't ready yet to field the TERN drone that should do exactly this to support navy vessels.
Impresionante!! Por más proyectos así!! 👏👏👏
the emergency mesh network application is a fantastic idea! amazing aircraft, well done!
Having a background making aviation components and later research, I found this video really interesting.
This is awesome, now if you could add rotation to the wings so you can tilt two of them, letting the third wing fold back sort of.
Outstanding !
WoW! What a great video
Most impressive. Not just the design, but all the associated work. Lidar, fffs. Wow.
And the video itself is pro. Your voice and manner are engaging.
As for the design itself, after saying "wow", my thought was to switch to a quad-copter on an old-style two-bladed rotor with two more little blades. It would fly horizontally as a straight main wing in two halves, with a stubby fin up and down in the middle of the craft. I dunno if that makes any sense.
I want to see more of your work.
I have subscribed.
absolutely wicked !!
Man this looks AWESOME.
That is a lot of software new code ...
Love the idea and execution ....
👍👏👏👏👏👏
great stuff!
LOVE THIS it looks so cool!!! very interesting. would be fun to build something like it!!!
Brilliant design, love how it seems so stable in forward flight.
Thanks for sharing.
Cool design!
You could add flaps to increase lift during forward flight. The program could adjust them to account for speed, pitch, and yaw. That way the controller can maximize efficiency for the demands as the flight requires.
What a fantastic design! I can honestly see a full sized version giving some competition to the osprey. All that’s needed is a stationary hub with the wings and propellers spinning around it.
Nice innovation. Congratulations 🎉
Sir, this is AMAZING such cool idea!
Thanks!