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Well, in simple terms with four rotors you vary their speeds to tilt the copter whichever way and thus steer it. Here you have a single rotor, and just try to
by theon144 8y ago
Well, in simple terms with four rotors you vary their speeds to tilt the copter whichever way and thus steer it.
Here you have a single rotor, and just try to imagine what happens when you vary its speed. It might bob around, fly up and then crash into something, but you won't be able to point it anywhere. Imagine trying to fly a ceiling fan.
This guy uses something called "thrust vectoring", i.e. "pointing the thrust of the single rotor in some specific direction" to steer it around, but for that you need something to redirect the flow of air, which he designed and custom 3D printed.
Which is pretty damn cool.
- close04 8y agoBut what's the benefit of taking this approach instead of the classic open propeller design or to ducted multi propeller designs?
- blattimwind 8y agoFun building it
- A2017U1 8y agoThe advantages of a single blade over the equivalent 4 smaller blades is efficiency. A tiny part of that is losses from extra motors but mainly its from blade length which dramatically affects power efficiency, up until the point where the tips go over the speed of sound, helicopters heavily optimise for this. The duct itself offers some advantage but it's used here to vector thrust for control rather than just go up and down. Battery power is quite constraining already for aircraft, ducted fan offers some benefit. The US military use a petrol powered ducted fan drone operationally, though i believe that's dual rotor, this is single rotor that offsets counter rotation with vectoring.
- madeuptempacct 8y agoSo, is this thing guaranteed to go faster in a straight line even without wings to provide lift? (Slight downward vector on thrust?) What would happen if rotors were added, ala Kamov helicopters.
- psiops 8y agoAs the parent said, it's pretty damn cool :)