Inventor and physicist Thomas Senkel created an Internet sensation with the October 2011 video of his maiden—and solely—take a look at flight of a spidery proof-of-concept 16-rotor helicopter dubbed Multicopter 1. Now the maker of the experimental private aviation craft, the European start-up e-volo, is again with a revised “volocopter” design that provides two extra rotors, a serial hybrid drive and long-term plans for going to 100 p.c battery energy.The new design requires 1.8-meter, 0.5-kilogram carbon-fiber blades, every paired with a motor. They are arrayed round a hub in two concentric circles over a boxy one- or two-person cockpit.After awarding the volocopter idea a Lindbergh Prize for Innovation in April, Yolanka Wulff, government director of The Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation, admitted the thought of the multi-blade chopper at first appears “nutty.” Looking past the novel look, nonetheless, she says, e-volo’s idea excels in security, power effectivity and ease, which have been the bases of the prize.All three attributes arrive thanks largely to evolo’s elimination of traditional helicopter parts. First, the energy-robbing high-mass primary rotor, transmission, tail increase and tail rotor are gone. The monumental blades over a traditional chopper’s cabin create elevate, however their mass creates a excessive diploma of stress and put on on the craft. And the small tail rotor, perched vertically out on a increase behind the cabin, retains the helicopter’s physique from spinning in the other way as the primary blades, however it additionally eats up about 30 p.c of a helicopter’s energy.The volocopter’s a number of rotor blades individually wouldn’t create the torque {that a} single giant rotor produces, they usually provide redundancy for security. Hypothetically, the volocopter may fly with a number of as 12 functioning rotors, so long as these rotors weren’t all clustered collectively on one facet, says Senkel, the plane’s co-inventor and e-volo’s lead building engineer.Without the long-lasting two-prop configuration, the craft can be lighter, making it extra gas environment friendly and lowering the bodily complexity of delivering energy to the highest and rear blades from a single engine. Nor would the volocopter want an energy-hungry transmission. In truth, “there will be no mechanical connection between the gas engine and the blades,” Senkel says. That means fewer factors of power loss and extra redundancy for security.E-volo’s design eliminates the dependence on a single supply of energy to the blades. As a serial-hybrid car, the volocopter would have a gas-fueled engine, on this case an engine able to producing 50- to 75 kilowatts, typical of ultralight plane. Rather than mechanically drive the rotors, the engine would generate energy for electrical motors in addition to cost onboard lithium batteries. Should it fail, the batteries are anticipated to offer sufficient backup energy so the craft may make a managed touchdown.Whereas helicopters navigate by altering the pitch of the primary and tail rotor blades, the volocopter’s maneuverability will rely upon altering the velocity of particular person rotors. Although extra complicated, it’s extra exact in precept to regulate a craft utilizing three to 6 redundant microcontrollers (in case a number of fails) deciphering directions from a pilot utilizing a recreation console–like joystick—as a substitute of rudder pedals, a management stick and a throttle.Wulff’s first impression in regards to the volocopter’s design shouldn’t be unusual. E-volo’s computer-animated promotional movies of a gleaming white, carbon-fiber and fiberglass craft beneath a thatch of blades recall the many-winged would-be flying machines of the late 19th century. This level shouldn’t be misplaced on Senkel.”I understand these skeptical opinions,” he says. “The design concept looks like a blender. But we really are making a safe flying machine.”That can be progress in itself. Multicopter 1 regarded like one thing from an particularly iffy episode of MacGyver, full with touchdown gear that concerned a silver yoga ball. Senkel rode seated amid all these rotors powered solely by lithium batteries. Multicopter 1 generated a mean of 20 kilowatts for hovering and was aloft for only a few minutes.There’s a purpose why the experimental craft flew briefly and solely as soon as.Senkel describes that first craft as “glued and screwed together.” Seated on the identical platform because the spinning blades, he says, “I was aware of the fact that I will be dead, maybe. Besides, we showed that the concept works. What do we win if we fly it twice?” he asks rhetorically.Other than placing the pilot safely beneath the blades, the revised volocopter design would function largely the identical because the preliminary prototype. The design calls for 3 to 6 redundant accelerometers and gyroscopes to measure the volocopter’s place and orientation, making a suggestions loop that offers the craft stability and makes it simpler to fly, Senkel says.The volocopter’s revised prototype underneath building may debut as quickly as subsequent spring. The first manufacturing fashions, accessible in maybe three years, are anticipated to fly for no less than an hour at speeds exceeding 100 kilometers per hour and a minimal altitude of about 2,000 meters, nonetheless far shy of ordinary helicopter’s regular working altitude of about 3,000 meters. “This could change our lives, but I don’t expect anything like that for 10 years,” Senkel provides.Given that a lot of the know-how wanted to construct the volocopter is already accessible, “this idea is fairly easy to realize,” says Carl Kühn, managing director of e-volo accomplice Smoto GmbH, an organization that integrates electrical drive methods and associated parts.Like Senkel, Kühn has modest short-term expectations regardless of his repeated emphasis on the usual nature of the know-how concerned. “I guess that e-volo will have [a prototype] aircraft in three years that can do the job—that it will lift one or two persons from one point to another,” he says.The greatest fast limitations look like regulatory. For occasion, European aviation regulators contemplate any electrical system larger than 60 volts to be excessive voltage and regulate such methods extra aggressively, Kühn says. As a end result, the volocopter will function beneath that threshold. The craft may also must weigh not more than 450 kilograms to stay within the ultralight class, which is likewise topic to fewer authorities aviation rules, in response to Senkel.The Lindbergh Foundation’s Wulff says the group’s judges felt e-volo had “a greater than 50 percent chance of succeeding, or they wouldn’t have given them the innovation award.” Asked if she would line as much as fly one sometime, she says, “I sure would. It looks very compelling to me.” Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the newest in science, well being and know-how information.© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
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