5 ms·
A fuel powered drone uses collective pitch propellers. The blades all spin at fixed RPM but the angle of the blades on each propeller can be adjusted individual
by spoonjim 5y ago
A fuel powered drone uses collective pitch propellers. The blades all spin at fixed RPM but the angle of the blades on each propeller can be adjusted individually with a servo. It actually far outperforms electric motors in maneuverability.
- toss1 5y agothere are a few examples of those, but they are pretty much one-offs. This is mostly because one blade pitch mechanism is messy enough with a helicopter, 4-8 with a multi-rotor is just too many critical moving parts to be effective. Most of the fuel powered drones will be basically an internal combustion engine powering a generator, which then feeds into the regular battery & ESC circuits (that's the type of machine I was working on). EDIT: Also important is that much of the yaw control of multirotor drones is done by changing individual rotor speeds to create a net yaw reaction from the acceleration/deceleration of the rotors. With constant-RPM motors, that goes away, along with a lot of yaw control authority.