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leoedin • today at 10:49 AM • 2 replies • view on HN

A really neat concept. It uses a special hinge design, a magnetic encoder and torque modulation to control the lift of the rotor as it spins. Completely negates the need for a conventional helicopter's swash plate.

The single motor does have the pretty major downside that it spins the moment it's in the air. I suspect a 2 motor drone with a tail motor would be a lot more practical. But I really like how mechanically simple the rotor hinge design is - it pushes all the complexity into the control algorithm.


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schiffern • today at 3:24 PM

Note that the concept itself has been done before in RC helicopters. The only difference here is using a one-propeller drone.

https://hackaday.com/2020/06/25/building-and-flying-a-helico...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d80oXSCcHTk

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Aboutplants • today at 7:11 PM

Perhaps there are specific applications where the payload spinning could be an advantage, imaging/scanning perhaps (which in the video is going to be in the next iteration for the builder).

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