5405 results about "Landing gear" patented technology

The present invention relates to a helicopter having a modular airframe, with multiple layers which can be connected easily, the layers which house the electronics (autopilot and navigation systems), batteries, and payload (including camera system) of the helicopter. The helicopter has four, six, and eight rotors, which can be easily changed via removing one module of the airframe. In one embodiment, the airframe has a vertical stacked appearance, and in another embodiment, a domed shape (where several of the layers are stacked internally). In one embodiment, there is a combination landing gear and camera mount. The helicopter allows for simple flight and usage by remote control, and non-remote control, users.

A quadrotor UAV including ruggedized, integral-battery, load-bearing body, two arms on the load-bearing body, each arm having two rotors, a control module mounted on the load-bearing body, a payload module mounted on the control module, and skids configured as landing gear. The two arms are replaceable with arms having wheels for ground vehicle use, with arms having floats and props for water-surface use, and with arms having pitch-controlled props for underwater use. The control module is configured to operate as an unmanned aerial vehicle, an unmanned ground vehicle, an unmanned (water) surface vehicle, and an unmanned underwater vehicle, depending on the type of arms that are attached.

A powered nose aircraft wheel system (130) for an aircraft (12) includes landing gear (104) that extends from the aircraft (12). A wheel axel (136) is coupled to the landing gear (104). A wheel (134) is coupled to the wheel axel (136). A wheel motor (106) is coupled to the wheel axel (136) and the wheel (134). A controller (120) is coupled to the wheel motor (106) and rotates the wheel (134). A method of taxiing an aircraft (12) includes permitting the wheel (134) of the aircraft (12) to freely spin during the landing of the aircraft (12). Power is transferred from an auxiliary power unit (73) of the aircraft (12) to the wheel motor (106). The wheel (134) is rotated via the wheel motor (106). The aircraft (12) is steered and the speed of the wheel (134) is controlled via one or more controllers selected from an onboard controller (18, 118, 120) and an offboard controller (45, 58, 59).

Aircraft landing gear comprised of a wheel hub motor / generator disks stack, includes alternating rotor and stator disks mounted with respect to the wheel support and wheel. The wheel hub motor / generator can provide motive force to the wheel when electrical power is applied, which may be applied prior to touch-down thus decreasing the difference in relative velocities of the tire radial velocity with that of the relative velocity of the runway thus greatly reducing the sliding friction wear of said tire. After touchdown the wheel hub motor / generator may be used as a generator thus applying a regenerative braking force and / or a motorized braking action to the wheel. The energy generated upon landing maybe dissipated through a resistor and / or stored for later use in providing a source for motive power to the aircraft wheels for the purpose of taxiing and ground maneuvers of said aircraft.

A system and method for automating Air Traffic Control operations at or near an airport. as a complete standalone automated system replacing the need for a human controller to make aircraft movement decisions nor the need communicate with pilots, or as semi-automated, where a controller controls how the system operates. The system with related methods and computer hardware and computer software package, automatically manages manned aircraft, remote controlled UAV and airborne-able vehicles traffic at or near an airport, eliminates ATC-induced and reduce pilot-induced runway incursions and excursions, processes control messages related to aircraft or Pilots, communicates with Pilot over ATC radio frequency, receives aircraft positions, communicates control messages with the aircraft avionics, provides pilots a dynamic map with continuous display of nearby traffic operations, shows clearance and information related to runway operations, warns pilot of runway conditions and turbulence from other operations, warns when landing gear is not locked, displays the pilot emergency exits during takeoff roll, shows the pilot when and where to exit from the runway, shows the pilot where and when to cross a junction, calculates and displays pilot optimal speed and timing on taxiways and junctions for saving fuel, calculates congestions, calculates best taxiway routes, calculates when aircraft can cross a runway, provides directives and information to pilot over CPDLC display or dynamic map for airside operations, alerts and triggers breaks of the aircraft on wrong path or when hold-short bar is breached, displays emergency personnel with routing map and final aircraft resting position for emergency operations, takes over an aircraft operation when aircraft is hijacked or deviates from the flight plan, provide standalone or manned Remote Tower functionality, Records and retains all information related to airport airside operations including aircraft positions and conditions from sensors and reports for runways, junctions and taxiways, Records and retains aircraft data and cockpit voice to ground-based servers to eliminate black-box requirements, calculate future weather and airport capacity from aircraft at or nearby airport, coordinates handoff operations with other ATC positions, interfaces with ACDM systems, airport operations center, flow center and network operations center.

The invention discloses a battery automatic replacement system of a small-sized multi-rotor-wing unmanned aerial vehicle. The battery automatic replacement system comprises a multi-track trolley, a battery storage disk, an unmanned aerial vehicle landing gear, a landing gear fixing plate, a landing gear fixing plate support, a battery storage disk support and a mechanical arm, wherein the landing gear fixing plate is arranged above the multi-track trolley, and is fixedly connected with the multi-track trolley through the landing gear fixing plate support; the unmanned aerial vehicle landing gear is arranged above the landing gear fixing plate; a battery inlet matched with the size of a battery is formed in the center of the fixing plate; the battery storage disk is arranged below the landing gear fixing plate, and is fixedly connected with the multi-track trolley through the battery storage disk support; and the mechanical arm is arranged below the battery storage disk. The battery automatic replacement system adopts a turntable type battery storage bin, so that five times of battery replacement can be performed at most through one step; and the battery automatic replacement system adopts a blind plugging type battery installation mode to achieve effects of convenience, fastness and high efficiency.

The invention discloses a transmission line inspection system based on a multi-rotor unmanned aircraft, which comprises the multi-rotor unmanned aircraft and a ground support system, wherein the multi-rotor unmanned aircraft comprises an aircraft body, an airborne flight control system, an airborne task system and an airborne power supply for supplying power to all the electronic devices; the aircraft body comprises a body, an undercarriage fixedly connected below the body, and a plurality of rotor components which are symmetrically distributed on the periphery of the body; the airborne flight control system comprises a flight navigation and control part, a transmission line anti-collision warning and control part, and an airborne end used for remotely controlling a telemetry data chain; the airborne task system comprises a damping nacelle, an image acquiring device arranged on the damping nacelle, and the airborne end for a wireless image transmission chain; and the ground support system comprises a ground end for remotely controlling the telemetry data chain, a flight monitoring system, the ground end for a wireless image transmission chain, and an image monitoring system. The transmission line inspection system has a reasonable structure, is easily realized, and has high engineering application value.

The present invention is directed to an apparatus for driving an aircraft having an undercarriage wheel, comprising aircraft drive means for driving an undercarriage wheel, and a clutch disposed between said driven means and said wheel, wherein said drive means and said clutch are directly connected to the undercarriage apparatus. Said apparatus may have gears disposed between said drive means clutch, or between said clutch and said wheel. In a most preferred arrangement, the apparatus of the invention fits inside the hub of said wheel. When the invention is applied to an aircraft undercarriage wheel, the clutch allows the wheel to be disengaged for takeoff and landing.

What is disclosed is a mobile railway car monitoring system. The mobile railway car monitoring system includes a plurality of sensor nodes coupled to an undercarriage portion of a railway car, and a control node coupled to the railway car. Each of the plurality of sensor nodes is configured to monitor the undercarriage portion of the railway car when in motion and transmit information about the undercarriage portion to the control node. The control node is configured to receive the information about the undercarriage portion, process the information to determine a fault condition for the undercarriage portion, and wirelessly report the fault condition to a collection system.

A shock strut for an aircraft landing gear having a retract actuator that is moveable in length to deploy or retract the landing gear, that includes a shrink strut and a transfer device. The shrink strut may be compressed in length for stowage in the fuselage. The transfer device may be in closed fluid communication with the strut shrink for transferring and receiving hydraulic fluid to and from the strut shrink. When actuated by an aircraft hydraulic or electric system independent of any motion of the retract actuator, the transfer device may drive hydraulic fluid to the strut shrink thereby compressing or shrinking the shrink strut to a partially compressed length.

A medical device for treating a target site within a lumen having an arcuate portion is provided. The medical device includes a first tubular portion comprising a proximal and distal end, and a second tubular portion comprising a proximal and distal end. A linking portion couples the first and second tubular portions, and an opening defined between the distal end of the first tubular portion and the proximal end of the second tubular portion. At least part of the linking portion is configured to conform to at least a portion of the arcuate portion of the lumen. Associated methods for using a medical device are also provided.

A system for use in monitoring, measuring, computing and displaying the rate of compression of aircraft landing gear struts experienced while aircraft are executing either normal or hard landing events. A high speed computer attached to high speed cameras, or range-finders, mounted in relation to each of the landing gear struts are used to monitor, measure and record the landing gear compression rates and aircraft touch-down vertical velocities experienced by landing gear struts, as the aircraft landing gear initially comes into contact with the ground. The system also determines through landing gear strut compression rates if aircraft landing limitations have been exceeded.

The invention relates to a tilt rotor aircraft adopting parallel coaxial dual rotors, which comprises a fuselage, wings, an empennage, a pitch control scull system, a landing gear, a power and fuel system, a transmission system, a rotor system, a rotor nacelle and a tilt system, wherein the wings are arranged at the center section of the fuselage; the empennage and the pitch control scull system are arranged at the tail of the fuselage; the landing gear is positioned at the belly of the fuselage; the power and fuel system is arranged inside the center section of the fuselage and is connected with the rotor system and the pitch control scull system through the wings and the transmission system in the fuselage; the rotor system is arranged on the rotor nacelle at the tip of the wings; partial wing which is fixedly connected with the rotor nacelle and simultaneously can tilt is arranged at the inner side of the rotor nacelle; and the tilt system is arranged in the wings and is connected with the rotor nacelle and the partial wing which can tilt. The tilt rotor aircraft is mainly characterized by adopting the pitch control scull system, the parallel coaxial dual rotors and the partialwing which can tilt to realize flight status transformation and conventional taxiing and landing, thereby improving the forward speed and the propulsive efficiency.

Aircraft landing gear comprised of a wheel hub motor / generator disks stack, includes alternating rotor and stator disks mounted with respect to the wheel support and wheel. The invention can provide motive force to the wheel when electrical power is applied, e.g. prior to touch-down, thus decreasing the difference in relative velocities of the tire radial velocity with that of the relative velocity of the runway and reducing the sliding friction wear of the tire. After touchdown the wheel hub motor / generator may be used as a generator thus applying a regenerative braking force and / or a motorized braking action to the wheel. The energy generated upon landing maybe dissipated through a resistor and / or stored for later use in providing a source for motive power to the aircraft wheels for taxiing and ground maneuvers of the aircraft. Methods and apparatuses for nose gear steering and ABS braking using the disclosed invention are described.

A belly pan, or membrane of rigid yet flexible material is of elongated shaped outline to be mounted along the bottom of tractor-trailer to improve the aerodynamic performance. The belly pan is provided with a tapered front portion to be attached to the frontal portion of the trailer to the approximate location of the truck hitch. The belly pan extends rearwardly, under the trailer, between the rear wheels in a rectangular portion and the rearward edge is affixed to the ICC bumper of the trailer. An aerodynamic shaped deflector is attached to the frontal portion of the landing gear of the trailer and attaches to the belly pan for reducing drag between the underside of the trailer and the support beams of the landing gear. A similar aerodynamic shaped deflector is attached to the frontal portion of the ICC bumper and attached to the belly pan for reducing drag between the underside of the trailer and the beams of the ICC bumper.

The invention belongs to the technology of airplane abutting, and relates to abutting technological equipment of airplane large components and an abutting method thereof. The abutting technological equipment of the airplane large components disclosed by the invention consists of a fixed part and a movable part, wherein the fixed part comprises a reference flat plate, a main landing gear technological support frame and a plurality of reinforced frame support frames; the movable part comprises a ground rail, a body front section railway car, a locking and positioning device and a centering device, wherein a car body is arranged on the ground rail, the centering device used for preventing the front section from rolling is arranged at the support frame of the car body, and the locking and positioning device is arranged at an abutting surface. When the front section and the middle section of an airplane are abutted via the abutting technological equipment, the position of the middle section is firstly fixed, then the front section is adjusted, and then accurate abutting of the front section and the middle section is realized through railway movement so as to perform subsequent riveting work. According to the abutting technological equipment of the airplane large components and the abutting method thereof, the abutting difficulty and potential safety hazard of the airplane large components are greatly reduced, the manufacturing efficiency and the abutting quality are improved, and the abutting precision of products is effectively ensured.

The invention discloses a folding rotor-type unmanned aerial vehicle. The folding rotor-type unmanned aerial vehicle can be folded compactly and unfolded quickly, so that the application flexibility of the rotor-type unmanned aerial vehicle is enhanced effectively. The unmanned aerial vehicle comprises a main body, four rotor arms and a landing gear, wherein each rotor arm is folded and unfolded reliably through a hinge mechanism and a limiting and locking mechanism. When the unmanned aerial vehicle is in a folded state, the rotor arms are positioned in axial grooves in the main body, a torsion spring in the hinge mechanism is compacted, and a limiting and locking piece is positioned at a locked position under the action of a reset spring. When the rotor arms of the unmanned aerial vehicle are required to be unfolded, the limiting and locking piece is driven to slide through a stirring piece along the circumferential direction of the main body, so that the rotor arms are unlocked; the rotor arms are driven to fall quickly by the torsion spring under the effect of torsional force and are limited in a horizontal state. After the rotor arms are unfolded completely, the stirring piece is released, and the limiting and locking piece is returned to the locked position under the effect of the reset spring, so that the rotor arms in an unfolded state are limited and locked.

The invention discloses an electrostatic spraying type unmanned helicopter pesticide applying system. The system comprises an unmanned helicopter having a landing gear, a supporting frame, a storage battery, a high voltage electrostatic generator, an electric diaphragm pump, a pesticide box and two sets of electrostatic spraying devices, wherein the supporting frame and the landing gear are fixed; the storage battery, the high voltage electrostatic generator, the electric diaphragm pump and the pesticide box are fixed on the supporting frame; the electrostatic spraying devices are symmetrically arranged on both sides of the unmanned helicopter; and a liquid outlet of the pesticide box is communicated with a liquid inlet of the electric diaphragm pump, and a liquid outlet of the electric diaphragm pump is communicated with the liquid inlets of the electrostatic spraying devices by a tee joint respectively. The system has the advantages that the size of the sprayed charged droplets is quite small, so the droplets are high in deposition effect and uniformly distributed, in particularly, the droplets can be attached to the back surfaces of leaves of plants, the effective utilization rate of pesticide is guaranteed and the drift loss of pesticide is lowered; and the spraying amount can be remotely controlled, so the spraying amount of the system can be changed along with the change of the flying speed.

A plasma fairing for reducing noise generated by, for example, an aircraft landing gear is disclosed. The plasma fairing includes at least one plasma generating device, such as a single dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator, coupled to a body, such as an aircraft landing gear, and a power supply electrically coupled to the plasma generating device. When energized, the plasma generating device generates a plasma within a fluid flow and reduces body flow separation of the fluid flow over the surface of the body. In another example, the body includes a plurality of plasma generating devices mounted to the surface the body to further aid in noise reduction.

The invention discloses an unmanned air vehicle with multiple rotary wings in a plane-symmetry layout, comprising a body, rotary wing assemblies and undercarriage, wherein, the number of the rotary wing assemblies is an even number more than or equal to 4; each rotary wing assembly comprises a rotary wing support arm, a rotary wing motor and a rotary wing, the rotary wing motor is fixed at the outer end of the rotary wing support arm; the rotary wing is arranged on a rotation shaft of the rotary wing motor and is driven by the rotary wing motor; the longitudinal symmetrical planes of the all rotary wing assemblies relative to the body are distributed in a bilateral symmetry mode, and are fixedly connected with the two sides of the body through the inner ends of the rotary wing support arms; an equipment compartment and a power source compartment separated front and back are arranged in the body, the equipment compartment comprises a navigation component, a flight control component and a communication component; the power source compartment comprises a battery for providing power to the electronic equipment of the whole air vehicle; the undercarriage is fixedly connected at the lower part of the body; and the flight control component is provided with a flight control computer with the functions of fault diagnosis of the multiple rotary wings and fault-tolerant flight control. The unmanned air vehicle has the advantages of novel appearance layout, concise internal structure, reliable system control and better engineering application value, and is easy for engineering implementation.

An onboard system for determining the instantaneous weight and balance of an aircraft simply, reliably, accurately, and requiring a minimum amount of calibration includes a memory for storing previously determined breakout friction data of the aircraft's landing gear shock struts, sensors for sensing the pressures in the struts, the vertical loads exerted by the landing gear on the aircraft, and the attitude of the aircraft relative to the horizontal during loading or unloading thereof, and a computer for computing the vertical load in each of the landing gears from the stored calibration breakout friction data and the shock strut pressures, landing gear vertical loads and aircraft attitude sensed during the loading or unloading. The computer then computes the gross weight of the aircraft and the location of its center of gravity (CG) using the computed vertical loads in the landing gears.

A system for use in monitoring, measuring, computing and displaying the volumes of internal gas within a telescopic aircraft landing gear strut. Pressure sensors and temperature sensors and motion sensors are mounted in relation to each of the landing gear struts to monitor, measure and record the impact movement and rates of internal landing gear strut fluids; experienced by landing gear struts, as the aircraft landing gear initially come into contact with the ground. The computer of this system measures the compression experienced by each landing gear strut and determines if the landing gear strut is improperly serviced with either excess or deficient volumes of nitrogen gas. Additional features include automating the inspections required to aircraft landing gear, prior to flight, during flight and during landing events.

A transforming unmanned aerial-to-ground vehicle assembly comprising: an aerodynamic flying assembly comprising an unmanned aerial vehicle integrated with an unmanned ground vehicle, a power unit shared by the unmanned aerial vehicle and the unmanned ground vehicle, vehicle controls shared by the unmanned aerial vehicle and the unmanned ground vehicle, a disengagement mechanism to separate the unmanned ground vehicle from the unmanned aerial vehicle, one or more manipulator arms located on either the unmanned aerial vehicle or the unmanned ground vehicle, and landing gear.

Shock-absorbers used as wheel-spokes between wheel-hub and rigid rim, which may be lined with threaded rubber or having gripping features otherwise. It reduces rolling resistance, saving fuel. It improves drivability. The compliance of the shocks is commensurate with that of a comparable inflated tire, but optimized passively or actively circumferentially, vertically and laterally. Rubber-bushing or spoke-inclination enhances driving stability. Giant field assembled mining-truck-wheels may be produced and deployed and field-assembled quickly by common metalworking shops at fractional cost and weight. It is environmentally friendly, for hardly using or not using rubber. The gas or liquid of the shock spokes may be interconnected and cooled. Soft and hard driving may be controlled manually or by computer on the fly. It is suitable for applications ranging from bicycle wheels to aircraft landing gears. It is fireproof, bulletproof, airless and silent. It cannot bounce or skid at jumpstart or braking and on ice.

A system for use in monitoring, measuring, computing and displaying the Kinetic Energy generated and experienced while aircraft are executing either normal, overweight or hard landing events. Pressure sensors and motion sensors are mounted in relation to each of the landing gear struts to monitor, measure and record the impact loads and aircraft touch-down vertical velocities experienced by landing gear struts, as the aircraft landing gear initially comes into contact with the ground. Velocity adjustments are made to correct for errors caused by landing gear per-charge pressure and landing gear strut seal friction. The system also measures the landing loads experienced by each landing gear strut during the landing event and determines if aircraft limitations have been exceeded.

An under vehicle inspection system comprises a single camera adapted to capture a full width image of a vehicle undercarriage in a single scan. The camera has a viewing distance from the vehicle undercarriage, as measured along the optical axis of the camera, that is greater than a Euclidean distance between the camera and a point where the optical axis meets the vehicle undercarriage.