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Hobby Inspired Electric Multicopter Makes Manned Flight
garymortimer writes "A German team has managed to fly its super-sized hobby inspired platform with a man on-board! A one-hour flight would cost something near to 6 Euro for electricity. In addition, the device holds few parts that could wear out, making maintenance intervals and cost low and far between. The control firmware can be integrated with a sophisticated integrated GPS system or obstacle detection. As such, automated flight for predetermined points on a 3D map is possible."
Publish the plans please!
I hope this caused some synapses to fire.
...is what'cha call it!
Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
Would it be so hard to suspend the pilot's chair underneath that mass of spinning rotors? I dub this thing "The Impaler".
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Damn that's economical!
"Hello and welcome to Johnny-Copter!!"
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I think it would help if the pilot was UNDER the blades, not parallel/above them. The shards will either go out or up if they fail, best plan is not to be there if it happens. And maybe some blade guards? If that thing's controllers failed while they were strapping on the batteries it could have been bad.
Very cool though, time to make it out of carbon fiber to add more lifting capacity.
That would be amazing (though loud...). Flying R/C has got to be the most amazing Hobby ever.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Also on a US centric site one hour flight _in Germany_ would cost €6. In US dollars _today_ that would be just over $8.
Having followed Slashdot for around 15 years I never found it very US centric, but maybe I have missed something.
Dennis Onstenk
I'm pretty sure Cuisinart is a French brand.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Meatgrinder included
I always wondered if this was possible. I thought the main problem would be sluggishness due to the increased mass of the props, but dividing the load among many smaller props helps to reduce this problem. But now it works! SWEET! And the increased number of props means better redundancy so more engines can fail without it dropping out of the sky.
Now it looks like they need more power. No need to be green at this stage, try hooking up a Rotax/micro-turbine generator to get some more juice and see how it goes! If I had the money I'd totally be trying this stuff. With an explosively deployed chute this sort of craft could be quite safe.
Flying car tiem? :D
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Every time i see one of these amateur fly-by-wire setups, i think of the F-16 development. One of the main show stoppers in the F-16 was the fact that the software would get confused when crossing the equator. It would flip the plane upside down fast enough to kill the pilot and then happily fly upside down until it ran out of fuel. Other little things like it would allow for wheels up while sitting on the tarmac, or allowing a bomb to come off the rack while inverted. Automation in flying is hard, and quite honestly you have to be prepared to lose pilots. http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/3.44.html
Good-bye
They played rasta musika during the epilogue. No need to send in the predator drones.
Seastead this.
Dont get me wrong, this is an amazing accomplishment. But six euros of electricity seems something like 20 - 50 KW of power. I wonder how LONG it will take to charge!!!!!!!
Not to mention the battery to hold that...
Not to mention the charging equipment, and power requirements to be able to "fast" charge it.
Have a nice day!
Plans would instantly kill people. While R/C is an amazing hobby, you have to know a few things. These blades are not protected, that guy wearing a helmet? It's not going to help him when a blade breaks and decapitates him! and while motor failure was discussed, an unballanced rotor wasn't... That will screw things up fast!
Neat Idea, but not something I'd sit on. Not yet anyway...
If that thing takes a nose-dive and he goes face first into one of those blades....
So what is that in non-monopoly money? :) (before I get flamed: US centric site, and USD is the standard international currency.)
I do agree that this is a US centric site, and thus dollars would be more appropriate. However, the standard internatural currency is the Euro, and it's been the Euro for a while.
An american complaining about monopoly money. Oh the irony.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Hmm, I wonder if there is an HTML tag for "JOKE"? I've needed it several times on /., and apparently so do the mods...
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
20-50kW of power is going to cost you a lot more than six euros. 200A two phase run from the nearby transformer, plus a breaker and distribution panel wired to code, is going to cost you a couple thousand. Car batteries are good for 6-8kW each, so you could probably get by with 300-500 euros that route. A smallish capacitor bank would likely be the cheapest route to that much power, but isn't going to last long.
Now at US electricity rates, you're looking at around €0.06/kWh. I've heard European rates can be double to triple that, so 20-50kWh of energy does sound reasonable, but then energy is not power. €12/hr means the thing draws somewhere around 40-100kW of power just to hover.
Rework the design so that instead of a pilot you have a circular ring in the center that can allow the craft to float over a prepared object (or person?) and, using some kind of servo, attach it to the craft to be delivered to a hard-to-reach area. With GPS the craft can auto-release at a designated location and height.
Be neat to auto-guide the craft to a location, deliver an object, then return to base for recharging. Then reverse the path to return the object (or person's new location?) back.
Everything is US centric for some US people... I feel sorry for them. They have no idea there is a bigger world out there.
Get rid of most of the batteries.
Replace that weight with a small efficient gas generator and your problems are solved.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
At 20c per KWH, $8 would be 40 KWH of electricity. I think I actually pay more like 10c, but never mind. Using lead-acid batteries to produce 40 KWH of electricity would require (... quickly delving into Wikipedia ...) about 1000 lbs. of batteries, assuming you could pull ALL the electricity out, which you can't - more like 30%. So, 3000 lbs. of batteries.
OTOH, a smallish car engine would do fine. Funny how that works.
That thing looks like the original saucer-shaped predecessor of the Moller SkyCar might look without the body.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
the standard internatural currency is the Euro, and it's been the Euro for a while.
What other nature are you trading with?
No, it'd be more efficient to get rid of the electric motor altogether, and have a piston or turbine engine driving the rotors directly. Of course, that's exactly what modern helicopters do.
You won't get any efficiency benefits by creating electricity with a generator and driving an electric motor with it. That only works in cars, where the load is highly variable, and in trains and construction equipment, where they need the gigantic stall torque that electric motors can create; in both situations, weight isn't that much of a problem, and a hybrid system like this adds a lot of weight. Helicopters don't have variable loads; they always run the engine at 100%, so there's no benefit to a hybrid approach.
First, while I agree with the human-in-a-blender comments above, I think a better analogy is running over a big rat with a gang mower.
Second, who cares? This is seriously cool and way safer than that dude flying his rocket pack across the Channel. Progress is not made by chickens.
Third, MAJOR props to the pilot for using the approved video gamer slouch seating posture appropriate to the controller.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Maybe: Record the Location of your Death with Homemade German Suicide Machine
Best use of a Swiss Ball, ever.
Lead-acid is a poor choice, due to low energy density. LIon batteries are about 3X better per kg, enough lighter that you'd actually get off the ground.
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It's the battery that gets me.
The batteries in a Chevy Volt hold a couple of dollars worth of electricity, and weigh 175 kilos. That's twice what that pilot there weighs.
Sorry, kids. You're not getting an hour-long flight off the ground until you change the laws of physics.
Fantastisch!
Yep. I was too lazy to look up Li-ion battery data as well. If they are 3X better, then it's still 1000 lbs. of batteries. And looking back at my arithmetic, I may have swapped Kg for lb., which makes things 2.2 times worse. Let's see - lead-acid = 40 WH / Kg. We need 40000 WH => 1000 Kg (not lb), and we can't use the whole amount, only 1/3 = 3000 Kg. So it is 2.2 times worse. You'll need 3000 Kg of lead-acid or 1000 Kg of Li-ion batteries. Sorry 'bout that. :P
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
This thing won't use less electricity than an electric car so the battery for an hour flight will be about the same.
So ... the flying part will be $5,000 and the battery will be $20,000.
My friend lost power in a storm a few months ago, and I rigged up a male to male extension cord, and plugged my inverter into his wall outlet, and we backfed power into his house to keep a few things going. I was charging group 31 deep cycle batteries on my commute to work, and I measured that they held almost exactly 1 KwH of energy each. Depending on the type of charge it took anywhere from 1.3X to 2.0X to charge them.
It is definitely interesting trying to live on 1 - 2 KwH a day and keep stuff going. Thank goodness for the kill-a-watt, gas hot water heaters, and city water pressure!
I'm curious...what's the rating of those engines? I bet there's some kind of equation for power in and thrust out for those rotors & motors, too.
I know someone who lives off the grid, on 60 acres. He started out with a diesel generator until he got his house built, now he has solar and a bit of wind. He has a very nice power system. The system looks at the wire every second to see if there is any demand, and if there is it provide the full 2 or 3 KW. The rest of the time it doesn't waste its own power maintaining the level. He had a heck of a time tracking down all the stray hidden power drains - even an LED on some piece of equipment was enough to trigger the system to come on. I think he averages about 1.5 KWH per day, including the water well. He has wood heat.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
I realize that this was just an early test, but it appears this flyer may not have enough thrust to make it out of the ground effect zone. Any experts out there?
Except that it is much easier to control many rotors using one gas generator and electrical motors at each of the rotors.
I assume the plans will be for sale in the rear couple pages of Popular Mechanics?
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
The shuttle? The US space shuttle? Which couldn't be launched in late December because the computer couldn't cope with year end roll over? Because the programmers didn't think the shuttle would ever be in orbit over the New Year? Seriously? A problem that existed since Mercury, was repeated on the shuttle and wasn't fixed until 2007? That's your standard of excellence?
El Reg
MSNBC "The shuttle computers were never envisioned to fly through a year-end changeover"
Wikipedia "Historically, the Shuttle was not launched if its flight would run from December to January (a year-end rollover or YERO). Its flight software, designed in the 1970s, was not designed for this, and would require the orbiter's computers be reset through a change of year, which could cause a glitch while in orbit. In 2007, NASA engineers devised a solution so Shuttle flights could cross the year-end boundary"
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
No, it's not. On a helicopter, there's only two rotors, and they're mechanically linked together because there's no reason to spin them at different speeds (you control them by altering the pitch of the blades). Even if there were a good reason for that, it still wouldn't come close to making up for the enormous weight penalty of a hybrid-electric system.
I've said it before the last time one of these dumb electric helicopter stories came up on Slashdot, and I'll say it again. Electric helicopters will NEVER be a reality until battery technology is orders of magnitude better than it is today (probably 2). The only reason we have such successful R/C ones is because those are tiny, super lightweight (they're made of styrofoam!), can't lift any kind of useful load, and don't stay aloft for hours at a time. We may even have successful electrically-powered UAV helicopters soon, but again those will be too small and underpowered to do anything besides be small, unmanned recon vehicles. To replace the kind of helicopter that carries humans, or better yet carries huge quantities of water for firefighting, or can lift tanks, requires an enormous amount of power which can only be provided by fossil fuels and internal combustion.
Meh... I'd actually be much more impressed if somebody built a manned version of a 3D-aerobatic and inverted flight capable helicopter with collective capable of going into the negative range like the TRex. Now that would take some real engineering know-how.
Doesn't work with these multicopter setups. They do not run at 100% all the time since the blades are fixed pitch. Direction and stability is maintained by varying the speed and each rotor has to be independent of the others. You'd need a massively complex mechanical setup to achieve that.
To do what you are saying, you'd require variable pitch blades so the engine could run at 100% all the time.
video I've seen where I'm certain the guys being filmed didn't request music, or maybe they did - the music is actually that bad. Maybe they wrote it too.
But this thing DOES carry a human! Granted, it's not carrying him any distance, but it at least got off the ground.
One order of magnitude in battery performance improvement would make this device workable for some applications.
Of course, the last order of magnitude improvement took 50 years, so I'm not holding my breath.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
In the video this thing never got out of ground effect -- although it did hover high in its ground effect -- so it may be more of a GEM (ground effect machine, aka hovercraft with no skirt) than a helicopter. Still cool, but of more-limited utility.
The mounting system for the motors and props seemed a bit funky. It's not clear what's holding the props onto the shafts, and the motors are bolted to the top of the airframe. Instinctively I'd prefer things the other way around, so that the forces are trying to squeeze it together rather than pull it apart, but if they've done the math and allow plenty of margin, it should be ok. (I figure each prop/motor shaft has got something like 16-20 pounds force pulling on it.)
As far as putting the CG above or below the plane of the rotors, it doesn't matter much -- the rotor plane is well spread out, and you get a gyro effect helping you. The Hiller VZ-1 Pawnee, for example, had the pilot standing above a single ducted fan (actually, two contra-rotating rotors in the single duct). That never got much out of ground effect either.
-- Alastair
Love the Hippity Hop landing cushion.
Make sure you watch it in 720p and pause a few times. It's very nicely made.
That's nice. Mass production now, please!
That's cool and all, but I want one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Pulpit
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I agree with all you are saying :) In fact that's what I was pointing that the grid itself cannot provide that much charging power over a conventional 13amp wire (what we use in the UK) and even a 60amp wire (approx 6 to 7 KW) is going to still take a long time to charge.
It is "possible" to get 20 to 50 KWH in six euros, let me explain.
Here in the UK, we dont have standing (compulsory) charges, instead they charge the first few KWH at a higher rate than the normal rate. so for example, the first 3 KWH is 25p, then 7 - 9p thereafter. so 20 kwh over a day will cost £3.78 = just over 4 euros. 50 kwh is £4.98 = just under 6 euros. If you are on a nighttime tarrif (like me) then the cost is 4p per KWH with no higher rate charge, if done overnight. therefore we could squeeze 125 KWH for £5 = about 6Euros.
The power company will probably have a word with you if you do that though!
Have a nice day!
Kilowatt hours (kWh) is a measure of energy, and costs however much your local power utility charges you. I did say that €6 did sound like a reasonable utility charge for 20-50kWh of energy. However, you did not say kWh , you said kW , a measure of instantaneous power. Not only that but you specifically said it was power and not energy.
The cost of instantaneous power is the cost of whatever device you use to provide that power. That could be a bank of capacitors, a bank of batteries, an engine hooked up to a generator, a link to the utility company rated for that much power, or something else like that. My point is that I doubt you could build anything for under €6 capable of outputting 20kW of electrical power.
I was pedantically correcting your use of words, because any time any story about power consumption ever comes up, people always seem to use power and energy interchangeably. It is a personal hatred that does not allow me to sleep at night because someone is wrong on the internet.
I wonder why they didn't mount one motor/rotor underneath one on top of the arm to minimize the footprint of the thing. DraganFlyer is doing that now.
Then, why couldn't you use even bigger motors and bigger props or are these the biggest brushless motors available? Or is it a question of rotor/armature mass that would slow down the response rate of speed changes.
Add a ballistic parachute and this thing would be seriously cool.
No, it's not. On a helicopter, there's only two rotors, and they're mechanically linked together because there's no reason to spin them at different speeds (you control them by altering the pitch of the blades).
Exactly this is not necessary with these Brushless E-Engines. The control is done by some gyros and electronics. No complex pitch control as in helicopters. No horrible mechanics, required to be maintained every day. No redundant hydraulic systems, no prove that the system remains halfway stable and controllable by a (extremely experienced) pilot, if the single (turbine) engine breaks and you have to autogyro. This prototype is already able to fly up to 20mins with the current LIPO batteries. It stabilizes itself, it weight is about the same as the human on top. Engines Props and Batteries are nothing special, taken from the shop. Even if some of them break, the beast will be able to be landed.
HELL YEAH, though we'd also soon have a bunch of Darwin award winners....
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.