Cycloidal Rotor Drone: The Cyclocopter
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- Опубліковано 17 тра 2024
- As it turns out, a propeller isn’t the only way to generate thrust to fly. The Cyclocopter is a unique drone platform with cycloidal rotor propulsion and thrust vectoring capabilities that allows for some interesting flying qualities.
Patreon: / nicholasrehm
Cycloidal Rotor Airplane: • Cycloidal Rotor Airpla...
With rotors that rotate around the horizontal axis rather than the vertical axis, this thing doesn’t look like it should be able to fly. Not to be confused with similarly looking magnus effect vehicles, the cyclorotor generates thrust by pitching the blades once per revolution so that they always have a positive angle of attack with respect to the incoming airflow. The position that this pitching angle occurs can be adjusted with a servo and a clever control rod mechanism so that the thrust direction can be instantly vectored in any direction. With some adjustments in the flight controller, the cyclocopter can translate forward and backward in what I like to call “Slidey Mode,” rather than needing to pitch the whole body to move.
00:00 Intro
00:49 What is a Cyclocopter?
01:25 How does the cyclorotor produce thrust?
02:29 How does it fly?
04:22 Advantage over a propeller
05:08 CYCLOCOPTER FRONTFLIP
06:08 Conclusions
#Cyclocopter #Drone #Propeller
It looks like it flys (or flew) really well! I've never researched how these things work, but your explanation is really easy to understand!
Thanks Tom, it feels mostly like a tricopter in the air. There’s a bit of control coupling between pitch and roll that can create small oscillations, but a fast enough controller takes care of it just fine
I think you need to build one of these tom, with four cyclo-rotors.
@@rcaviator8408 looks like toms goal is mainly on batteries or thing likely for energy storage…
@@minercraftal True. But I think he would be great at this.
@@rcaviator8408 I’ve been tried on several objects and got problems of having everything jammed up.
Seems it’s way better to get stuck on a single object so that able to finish it…
This is the kind of stuff I feel UA-cam was invented to highlight. Great job and fun video to watch!
Thanks Chuck!
Yeah, so cool!
Looks like a flying combine harvester!
Great video. Thanks for sharing 👍
Should call it a "combinecopter".
Good for kills insects ];-D.
If you make a helicopter sized one it's a human head harvester
I was thinking reel mower.
Scary thought given that reaper drone
This is the first actually flying Cyclogiro I've seen. I'm impressed! The closest one to free flight was a university project from about a decade ago.
I love how this cyclocopter seems to be flapping its wings to stay airbourne. What a crazy little machine! Loved this vid, Nicholas. The editing and graphics were great!
Thanks James! Your Magnus effect vehicle has a little brother now haha
@@NicholasRehm They should hang out! :P
Hey, I was just thinking it's a bit like the magnus effect plane you and PS made... although very different and more complicated with it's moving blades
Stupid, not crazy.
Remember; moving parts really suck.
@@Chris.Davies Then you should really be into free flight gliders. The point is clearly to build a fun experiment and proof of concept it's only stupid if you fail to see that.
Reminds me of the Voith Schneider propulsion system that some ships have. It does work, and it has a few advantages over traditional propellers, but there's a reason why only very few ships were equipped with it. Maintenence cost mainly, an awful lot of moving parts.
It's the same idea (both use cyclorotors), but the VSP (Voith-Schneider Propulsion) system has a more sophisticated control linkage that adjusts both thrust direction and pitch (and thus thrust) magnitude; this cyclocopter changes rotor speed to control magnitude, which would not be practical in a large size.
Moving parts are always worse than complex geometry
Imagine it in combat 💥 😂
Yes, though it runs vertically in this application.
This is how I always imagined the ornithopters from Dune. Fantastic model!
Why are they called "ornithopters"?
Because they are modelled after a Hummingbird, the study of birds is ornithology.
Really cool design. Especially how forward and backward motion is achieved just by adjusting the pitch of individual blade per cycle. Really impressive.
That was my favorite maneuver. It is unique to this design, and even a chopper can't do it as smoothly and quickly.
Pretty cool that this concept has been used in boat propulsion for a long time. Voith Schneider is the company. It's used in tugs and some other specialty craft. It can drive any direction basically instantly. Good work!
OOOOH. I didn't really understand how this method was meant to work, but your comment reminded me this was how the old steamships with big wheels used to propel themselves forward and it all clicked
@@K3end0 Actually, that's slightly different. Paddle steamers as they are called, with the big wheels at the sides, have fixed paddles rather than movable ones. Voith Schneider make vertical-axis propellers of the same type as the horizontal axis blades of this cyclocopter. A key advantage is that by adjusting the central point about which the blades are offset, you can change the direction of propulsion to any horizontal direction, 360 degrees. That's why they are used for boats such as tug boats and car ferries that have to be very manoeuvrable.
VMS for the win!
@@herseem Kirsten-Vorth were the other company making cycloidal marine propellers.
@@mightymystery9204 I didn't know that, thanks
Nice. I think the reason why this isn't widely used is because of the complexity and more moving parts making reliability harder to achieve
Really sorry for the crash but thank you very much for sharing this marvellous achieved concept! Thanks for sharing!
Not practical: yes. Cool as Hell: yes. Best thing I've seen in 2021
Really a beautiful Machine, looks tiny but a lot of engineering is packed into it (kind of makes it look complex), love it👌🏻!
Thanks for the kind words
Sweet! I'm sure someone out West would pay for this - they already use drones to check fences and stock and once it moves and has a camera, if it's three times more efficient, clear winner!
I envisaged a "planarcopter" which would work with a linear foil like a glider but the idea never got past a sketch. Well done!
pretty amazing.
glad you are honest enough to show blips....
I immediately recalled old videos of the early days of flight. Thanks tipping your hat to a long forgotten innovator.
Enjoyed the heck out of it. As far as practicality is concerned though, it doesn't have much payload area for commercial use in large scale....not that you intended it to be. Very interesting. Thanks!
Regardless if there isnt really a benefit to design it that way, It's definitely cool to see your new design and how it works :)
Excellent job explaining how it works and the blade geometry vs. helicopter. I'm impressed!
Nicholas, you have a great UA-cam channel and I think you do some of the most amazing projects, this being one of them. Thanks for all the inspiration.
Brilliant. You win my 'youtube video of the day' award, a very prestigious award appointed by me. I do actually watch quite a few, so it does mean something!
Hahah many thanks Mike!
Absolutely fascinating! Thanks for sharing your Cyclocopter with us!
Great video! That was my first introduction to cyclo copters. Thank you!
It's nice to give new exposure and way of thinking of how technology works in different ways
Great build, a lot of work, thumb up!
was wondering why your video got to my feed, then watched the video and the people commented.. totally deserved
dude this vid won the internet for me today. crazy stuff!
Well done Nicholas.Very inspirational.
When flipping, could you theoretically keep adjusting the airfoils so they always create lift upwards, (making it possible to not only maintain altitude but also have it front flip very slowly)
Yes-if my servos have enough travel or I implemented collective control
As it was, it just needed higher initial altitude prior to attempt of the forward flip.
But Helo don't do forward flips, but some can do a 360 loop or roll...?
@@darrenthompson6115 Collective pitch R/C model helicopters can flip forwards, backwards or sideways. Do a search for Radio Control 3D helicopters to see what I'm saying. R/C Pilots fly them like hummingbirds on crack.
@@hifinsword well.... I took you advice and came across Tarek Assardi.... OMGgggghh... never seen precision snd sheer talent flying like that.... totally astounded...🤷🏼♂️🤷🏼♂️
I really like your creation thank you for sharing, wish you a lot of health and happiness
Thank you!
Good explanation of Cyclocopter principle! Thanks!
If you built this then my heartiest congratulations to you. We need more people like you
This is fantastic, I've never seen someone build one of these and it's this stable. I'm sure that tuning this thing was a pain.
Not too bad--just like a tricopter
WOW! When I saw the early version of this type of design I Was sure it could be made to work, I've seen the four rotor models that have been proven but you have made a craft that is very unique and awesome, Thanks for sharing
Awsome video. I love the smokey fire stand in for a wind tunnel! ... more ... truly great!
Excellent work !
I look forward to more of your thinking........
Very interesting, if slightly mad! Your talk about how lift varies along the length of a helicopter blade reminds me of another problem helicopters experience: retreating blade stall. As the forward speed of the helicopter increases, so the speed of the retreating blades relative to the air falls until ultimately they aren't going fast enough to generate lift, and the helicopter stalls on one side. This could also happen to a cyclocopter, if you got it to go fast enough, but the "blades" stalling would be the ones underneath the wing assembly, so there would be no change in attitude.
(If I correctly understand) For a cyclocopter going forward, with blades at the top going forward the top blades would get increased airspeed and lift. The bottom blades going rearward would create lesser lift but the increased lift of the top blades would more than compensate. This would create more drag above the centre of mass but should not increase the angle of attack so there should be no blade stall.
I believe for a helicopter the retreating blade has to increase the angle of attack for the lower airspeed while the advancing blade decreases the angle of attack to compensate. which is what creates the stall issue (as speed increases) to one side as opposed to (for the cyclocopter) the load just being transferred to the top blade with similar angle of attach but different airspeed/lift.
Once the airspeed approaches/matches/exceeds wingtip speed then you are in trouble and exceeds my understanding right now after a bottle of wine.
@@peterjones3113 I would think the added drag of the blades when they are between top and bottom position would make it a non-issue though, haha.
It would be interesting to see a design of two servo hubs in each end so the pitch angle can be adjusted separately within the pairs of blades, to allow for the blades moving up/down to pitch and get the angle of attack of the blades in transition closer to zero. Though this also requires the servo to be constantly changing positions (4 times per rotation) when the craft is moving at speed.
I suppose this would also be an effective way of introducing horizontal acceleration without effecting vertical lift when the craft is hovering, by having only a single pair active with the other pair in a neutral position, if it is even possible to find a neutral position without adding even more complexities.
Nice. One tiny question though: How about the efficiency compared?. It must be better to compensate for the added complexity i.e. construction cost.
Efficiency is slightly less, but only because it has not been 'optimized to heck' like multirotor propellers yet... Really, its not a fair comparison to directly compare efficiency as your main metric of 'usefulness' since the aerodynamics are so different. There are other benefits/design considerations to factor in too like thrust vectoring ability or disk loading/tip speed!
In copters/drones tip speed is so to say a resolved issue. The total weight is a factor too, as is construction cost (and also efficiency, as it too determines need for power and fuel to reach set goal.) Interesting anyhow. A comparison to Flettner too would be interesting!
@@henriksegercrantz362 it’ll never beat propellers/drones, that’s for sure. But larger scale…
@@NicholasRehm Why do you think so?
@@janami-dharmam also interested to know why!
What a great build. Very interesting
Wicked cool! I like that you threw in some dry ice too.
Very cool. I like the design and wholeheartedly agree because it's more manageable Harrison aspect of a squirrel cage design. I believe the market has gone with the four propeller blades like a helicopter for a maneuverability that's more instant. I subscribed to your channel I can't wait to see what else you have.
I thought it was going to be using the Magnus effect with Flettner rotors...
But no! Something new to me. What a great device!
I could see miniaturised battlefield drone versions.
Great video along with excellent model making! Thanks!
Thanks a ton!
This is the coolest thing I have seen in months!!
Thank you! Fascinating concept
A similar take is actually in current use around the world: the Voith Schneider Propeller for ships. It allows excellent maneuverability and is used for tugboats, ferries and other ships requiring omnidirectional control. It's pretty awesome!
Exactly my thought. The mechanism is same, just tilted and wider "propeller blades"
Question is: where are the limits for scaling this up? Mechanical stress to the joints? Vibrations? RPM? Torque? Moment of inertia? Stalling-like effects?
I think, the by-now wing-like design might be improved dramatically for this motion pattern and airflow, as compressible air makes other conditions than water (Reynolds number)
This is such a cool concept. I wish there can be a breakthrough in cyclo copter technology in the future. Thanks for the vid!
Thanks!
Underrated channel. Very good projects👍🏻
Wow, I'm an older codger, you are a genius. Well done. Surely it makes for very maneuverable vehicle. Great for mustering cattle in our Outback.
Kind of complicated, but can understand the principle if you watch it more than once.
It seems analogous to the old paddle wheel steamboats. But the screw driven boats turned out to be much more efficient. I think the vertical placement of the up and downward moving blades, create more drag when traveling forward or backwards through the air. So in the end, they may work great for vertical movement (VTOL or STOL), but not so efficient traveling forward, i.e. going from place to place.
The opposite is true. Helicopters are limited in the maximum speed they can achieve because of wingtip mach stall. A Cyclogiro experiences this at a much later point and it can also be used for three dimensional thrust vectoring.
It's the holy grail of VTOL, but it's devilishly difficult to control and has never been successfully flown on man carrying scale.
@@Argosh My comment was not about speed, but efficiency. Not only are the cyclogyro blades less efficient at forward speed, the mechanicals are very complex, creating more chances for failure, and would be a nightmare to maintain compared to conventional aircraft.
@@hifinsword that's what I mean. The entire blade moves at the same relative airspeed for a cyclogiro. A helicopter has much of its blade in very different speed regiments.
@@Argosh Yes, that is true. But it seems the cyclocopter's blades are not always moving in a lifting motion as they make the rotation. Much of that time in the rotation would seem to be at best neutral and sometimes even causing drag. I'm not an aeronautical engineer, but it seems very inefficient.
@@hifinsword if you do the math it apparently comes out to 40-60% more efficiency than rotary wings.
Nicely done!
That’s fantastic, from the intro I thought you had invented a flying lawn mower, and when you did the flip, I was gutted. Please more!
Makes me wonder if you could do collective pitch as well, so that you don't have to vary the speed between the two rotors for roll control, but rather adjust the angle of attack between the two so one makes more lift
Sure, just need a linear actuator to extend the offset linkage to change blade pitch amplitude
The Voith Schneider propulsion system does that (with huge heavy blades in water for ship propulsion). The control linkage is definitely more complex, but it's viable.
Very interesting flight technique! The video presents this flight format well and clearly!I think somewhere this also has a future, as it has been known for a long time and has not been forgotten!Now this flight technology solution can make its way!Have a nice day!
👍🍀☀️👆
Engineering work in progress, thanks for showing all in such clear manner.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing! I am playing around building vawt's and this info is very helpful. Cheers
I remember seeing film of the Grey Goose on TV long time ago as a kid. Very interesting concept! My only concern is all of the moving parts on the outside. A simple failure of a part in flight could be catastrophic.
What is the relative efficiency in power required to lift generated when compared to the quad.
I live on a coastal bluff with an afternoon updraft of about 15-20mph. I have considered building a cyclorotor to capture this energy. Is this, in your opinion, worthwhile?
Efficiency is slightly less, but only because it has not been 'optimized to heck' like multirotor propellers yet... There are other benefits/design considerations to factor in too like thrust vectoring ability or disk loading/tip speed!
A conventional 3 blade type horizontal axis wind turbine has efficiency of 40 to 50%. A vertical axis turbine has 10 to 15% efficiency. If you align the axis of a turbine with the direction of air flow, all blades are generating lift, or are used to capture energy. If the axis is across the air flow direction only part of the blade arrangement is working for you, the rest is working against you.
No, in my opinion, this is not worthwhile.
This propeller arrangement is used in situations that require rapid flow direction changes, like in tugboat applications. They have tremendous power inputs, and the losses are acceptable as the benefits of flow direction control outweigh the need for power conservation.
In your application, you want maximum efficiency, and have little need for flow vectoring. Besides, the complexity of the cyclorotor adds many more failure points, increased maintenance and shorter service life.
I love gadgets and this is unique . Thanks for this well produced film.
Thankyou for posting this. I throughly enjoyed every minute. Informative!
Awesome copter! Ya just need two Cyclo-wings to be rid of the nose propeller.
Edit: My only concern would be how well does it handle wind?
It handles wind pretty well in the “slidey mode” as long as the nose is pointed into the wind
or lugwa vtol configurations,
This is an amazing explanation and now I want to make an actual three rotor version of this or hex rotor. Something like that with this system and very fast 360°+ servos for the rotor pitch Control would be able to hover in any orientation. Although I might need two auto stabilization command loops when it comes to programming the gyroscope/flight stabilization cpu.
The potential control devices are going to be kind of crazy something like what I’m talking about would be limited in its capacity by the classic radio controller, a vr headset like the quest would probably be the only control device that could use the full capabilities. One hand controlling orientation the other controls the direction that it’s moving. The control interface for the VR thing would be like a three dimensional joystick for throttle direction and either head rotation controlling roll, pitch and yaw or the other hand doing so with a three dimensional joystick to keep the head free to look around a 360° camera feed.
And then the next step to making this really fun is putting airsoft guns on them:
Something with a top speed of 250 miles an hour flying through a forest at speed like it’s no problem until it sees someone, fires three rounds and moves on.
We just have to agree and we will never set up swarm capabilities or something like that and plug it into an AI. Thousands of angry stars wait for us if we do something like.
I like the more pleasant sounds it makes.
Fantastic. Thanks for sharing your cool project and description of the physics with us.
A big worry I have is how it handles motor/engine failures. It's the same problem I have with things like quadcopters. They're basically rocks when the power fails, which is why I have difficulty seeing them as viable for moving humans around.
Crude as it is, my solution for making quads safe and same thing here would be a parachute. I get why airlines don't issue passengers with a parachute. It's just not good optics, and it will create more panic in those afraid than not thinking about it. However, I doubt anybody who ever got a plane would not be very happy and grateful to know their plane has one. It makes lemonade from lemons so to speak in these cases.
@@GrassPossum In an almost always uncontrollable situation, getting hundreds of passengers out of an airliner would be impossible. The only way parachutes in an airliner would be workable is an emergency where control is possible for about the normal disembarkation time that would be done, not the usual emergency. It's hard enough when there are only a few people trying to bail out. A parachute for light aircraft is already available and used by many. What would make multicopters safer in case of a motor failure would be a hexocopter or octocopter. A failure of one motor wouldn't condemn it to a crash.
I wonder if you put two cylinders, one slightly smaller inside the other with a bunch of tiny holes and bridges connecting, or sliding past, for movement in the same way as the flaps on this cycloidal rotor, if this can hybrid with the Magnus effect.
It would require many smaller pieces, which also increases complexity. But would it also increase efficiency with multiple downforce generations in one space?
Bloody impressive mate! Very interesting design.
Fascinating look at what is for me a brand new technology.
Congratulations, I didn't think you'd get this to fly! Even with a model there are large structural forces (bending forces) on the wings because of the high rotation speed. There is an application in shipbuilding for ships that need high maneuverability at low speed (harbor tugs, ferries) with a vertical rotation axis of the system. Unfortunately, the description in Wikipedia is only available in German under the title “Voith-Schneider-Antrieb”. If you switch Wiki to English, you get to the title "Cyclorotor", which unfortunately does not describe the application in ships.
It's used a lot in ships that have to be very manoeuvrable, such as car ferries and tug boats because you can change the direction of thrust to any direction very quickly and efficiently
Awesome work! I'm curious to know how much you can increase thrust and flight time
compared to props. Pro tip: if you want to flip, consider having more height so you have space to recover.
and potentially smash it into the ground even harder! great idea!
@@Dark0neone i know what you're thinking but as strange as it sounds, the more height the more time you have to get it back levelled. For the same reason cats survive more falls from 9th floor compared to 5th floor.
@@swishpan unless you don't level it and then my point still stands.
I wouldn't do the first test at a great height. I would rather fix it than rebuild it, especially without getting much useful information.
@@Dark0neone I prefer about 10 meters altitude on my stunts. ua-cam.com/video/Dv00IuekHwk/v-deo.html
@@swishpan I didn't ask lmao.
Great explanation. Kudos!
This was an amazing video and excellent craftsmanship!
Building stuff that has never been made before is my specialty!
Great video, from the airflow view it seems a lot simpler than a helicopter, even if less intuitive for us humans. The cycloidal rotor allows for a much more stable flight than the helicopter or quadcopter, the simple mechanical way of steering the "wings" for the movement in two dimensions is also a big improvement compared to the "rolling around" that a "normal" ´copter design has to cope with. Basically it is an ingenious design and I would be very much interested in the forces it throws at the ground compared to the predecessors.
The flip would have worked, if you had a bit more ground clearance. You could see in the video how the machine made a complete flip and was just not able to compensate the received downwards thrust. Either build in a limiter, so that it doesn´t power the rotors if the top faces downwards or make the flip at at least double the height. Maybe triple, I am just guessing, but gravity is also a component next to power to weight ratio. And my brain aint no supercomputer.
Every writing mistake can be kept by the finder, as I am drunk af.
Excellent thoughts. Yes I agree the flip would have definitely worked if I was higher, but I didn’t want to risk missing it on camera haha. Cheers 🍻
I've often thought a regular quad copter design with servos tilting all 4 blades is the best design concept. This would keep copter body straight and level but all 4 blades would tilt forward, back or side to side.
That has been done before.
Been a long time coming about time this came out .
Wow, that's really cool. Thanks for posting this video.
How would another rotor going in the opposite direction work in place of the conventional tri-blade work?
Great question, you can counter the torque with two sets of counter-rotating rotors, like a quadcopter: ua-cam.com/video/IzUzeu5OoHk/v-deo.html
@@NicholasRehm I think that would be both the maddest looking and yet cool flying machine :)
Well done! Have you seen "Cyclorotor's" 83kg prototype craft with 4 cyclorotors? I am also interested in producing lift from the blade less ring design
They have a very interesting prototype indeed
I'm not trying to take anything away from your video I think it's awesome engineering
The level lift factor is a great value for pickup and delivery of 4 point loads - I hope this will be the start of some powerful solutions.
Could you have the blades go horizontal on the downswing to generate upwards force?
That would stall the blade and produce zero lift. Well near zero lift.
:)
"Hey, some hard work I can profit from!"
Well done. Definitely outside the box thinking
Dude what!? Awesome job.
drone: crashed and broke landing gear.
“we only need the drone to fly, we dont need landing gear to fly”
drone: cant fly immediately after.
"What's a behind me, it's not important" - Cannon Ball Run
ua-cam.com/video/AjGXn249Fc0/v-deo.html B-)
The Cycle copter would probably be a perfect cargo vehicle for planets with lower gravity
Great video. Thank you for explaining the concept very understandable.
This is the first working cyclocopter model that I saw, previously I any saw CGI models of the concept. So I was really stoked to see it in reality.
Would be awesome to be able to quickly make an electric car into a drone by attaching these to the wheels. Then you could fly somewhere, disconnect, then drive to the final location. Once energy density gets better, who knows!
Thanks for your great work!
It's nice to see somebody on the leading edge. Go get it. I be looking. and thanks for shareing.
Nice ,straightforward way of presentation , simple and short,. Like it,…….
Wow, this is super cool!
You're unduly modest towards the end of the video. I think this concept has a future.
Perfect presentation!
Thanks a ton Thomas
Interesting and informative. Thank you for posting this.
Great work!
That was fun to watch and learn. Thanks
WoW, I always wondered wich machine would really flight when I saw the movie or show where your black and white clip was from.
You got to love dedicated engineers and thank them for our technical wonders of the world