3291 results about "Propulsor" patented technology

An aircraft having a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) propulsion system. The aircraft includes a fuselage, the VTOL propulsion system, at least one forward thruster, a power source used for both the VTOL propulsion system and forward thruster, fore and aft wings and a plurality of spars attached to and spanning the space between the two wings. The VTOL propulsion system includes a plurality of VTOL cells (including a motor, motor controller, and propeller) attached in a spaced relation along each spar. The VTOL cells are used exclusively for vertical flight or hovering and are powered down as the aircraft develops forward flight velocity and corresponding wing lift. During forward flight the VTOL propellers are articulated to allow the aircraft to take on a low drag configuration. The present invention is suitable for use in manned or un-manned aircraft of any scale.

To access the inexhaustible energy source like seas and oceans we need to learn how to convert its wave motion to the customized power for our ships, for our existing littoral settlements and our future ocean settlements. Here is an attempt to develop method of the conversion the wave energy to power with floating means based on a gyroscope strong capability to resist against the outer force moment trying to tilt it to any side.The gyroscope is used as the fulcrum torque dynamic supporting instead traditional static base used in the issued devices. Alternate force moment created by the waves and transmitted to the gyroscope (via the floating body and the wave energy converter) inducts alternative gyro precession so as the gyroscope axis hesitates about mean position. This is important because it allows the gyroscope to keep dynamic fulcrum torque in unlimited time.The few gyroscope precession control devices and methods have been developed to compensate other reasons enforcing the mean gyro axis to drift from initial plumb.Also here are developed the new ship architecture with the separated floating gyro section. The wagging propulsor driven by the pitching and with strokes amplified by the fulcrum gyro section, the spring moment generator for the gyroscope drift compensation, non gyroscope floating power station able to derive, convert, accumulate and transmit wave energy to consumer also have been developed here.

The invention consists of a specific, matched arrangement of aeronautical elements which (1) eliminates aerodynamic interference of, and (2) adds variable-cycle propulsion to, the level flight mode of a four-propulsor tilt-wing VTOL (vertical takeoff & landing) aircraft, without an additional element of variable geometry. This is achieved by configuring the components such that the rotor planes on either side pass through each other in the transition maneuver to form adjacent, close-coupled, counter-rotating pairs in level flight.

A compound aircraft features variable incidence wings, a thruster, a rotor and a clutch connecting the engines to the rotor. Upon reaching a suitable forward speed, the control system of the compound aircraft unloads the rotor and disengages the clutch, disconnecting the rotor from the engines. The control system configures the cyclic and collective pitch effectors to cause the rotor to autorotate. The control system selects an autorotation rotational speed that is adequately rapid to prevent excessive deformation of the rotor blades due to aerodynamic forces acting on the blade and that is adequately slow to prevent excessive compressibility effects.

The system is used for taxiing an aircraft and comprises at least one multi-spool gas turbine engine, the engine having an electrical motor in a torque-driving engagement with a low pressure spool of the engine. The low pressure spool has a propulsor connected thereon to generate thrust when rotated. A controller is connected to the electrical motor and an electrical power source to control an amount of electrical power provided from the power source to the electrical motor so as to drive the propulsor and cause at least a major portion of the thrust to be generated by the propulsor for moving the aircraft during taxiing.

The invention discloses a flying automobile with front folding wings and rear folding wings are arranged in series. The front wings are arranged on two sides of the front part of an automobile body; the rear wings are arranged on two sides of the rear part of the automobile body; after being turned and folded, the front wings can be collected on two sides of the automobile body in parallel or collected in a front carriage in a vertical stacking manner; after being turned and folded, the rear wings can be collected on the rear upper side on the top of the automobile body; large-area solar battery panels are arranged on the surfaces of respective parts of the wings and the automobile body; when the wings are unfolded completely, the flying automobile is turned into a serially-arranged fixed wing airplane and becomes a giant solar charger, and the solar battery panels and batteries supply power; when the wings are folded, the appearance and the size of the flying automobile are the same as those of a common sedan; and an underwater propeller is arranged at the bottom of the automobile, so that the flying automobile can be landed on water and sails in the water. The flying automobile is well combined with functions of an airplane, an automobile and a ship and is environment-friendly and high in continuous voyage capacity and suitable for families.

A vehicle includes a wing and a control surface pivotably coupled to the wing and configured to pivot about a range of motion. A propulsor is coupled to the control surface and configured to rotate between a first position associated with a hover flight mode and a second position associated with a forward flight mode. The propulsor is aerodynamically actuated between the first position and the second position due to aerodynamics about the wing. The propulsor may rotate from an initial flight mode, such as a takeoff mode, to a second flight mode, such as a forward flight mode.

The invention discloses a teleoperation unmanned submersible for detecting and disposing a submarine target, and is applied to the field of detecting and disposing technologies for submarine targets in the limpidity water area and the muddy water area. A power propulsion device of the teleoperation unmanned submersible comprises four screw propellers installed on a submersible body frame, wherein a cable interface and a signal interface are combined so as to form a photoelectric composite cable interface; underwater detection equipment comprises submersible front detection equipment and submersible lower detection equipment; a forward follow-up bright light searching lamp, a follow-up glimmer camera and an acoustic lens of a detection sonar are fixedly installed on a pitching rotation cradle head; the pitching rotation cradle head generates pitching rotation relative to the submersible body frame so as to adjust detection and viewing angles of the submersible front detection equipment fixed on the pitching rotation cradle head; and submersible position and attitude sensor group realize exact locating on positions and attitudes of an ROV (remotely-operated vehicle), thereby improving the service property of the unmanned submersible, and expanding the application area of the unmanned submersible.

Disclosed is an underwater vehicle that can be operated as a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) or as an autonomous vehicle (AUV). The underwater vehicle has a tether, which may be a fiberoptic cable, that connects the vehicle to a control console. The underwater vehicle has vertical and lateral thrusters, pitch and yaw control fins, and a propulsor, all of which may be used in an ROV-mode when the underwater vehicle is operating at slow speeds. The underwater vehicle may also be operated in a AUV-mode when operating at higher speeds. The operator may switch the vehicle between ROV-mode and AUV-mode. The underwater vehicle also has a fail-safe mode, in which the vehicle may navigate according to a pre-loaded mission plan if the tether is severed.

The current invention provides significant performance improvements or significant energy savings for fans used in these applications: personal, industrial and automotive cooling, ventilation, vacuuming and dust removal, inflating, computer component cooling, propulsors for unmanned and manned air vehicles, propulsors for airboats, air-cushion vehicles, airships and model aircraft. Additionally, the invention provides higher performance such as higher lift and higher lift efficiency to small air vehicles. These advantages are achieved by using plasma actuators to provide active flow control effectors into thin fan blades and wing.

A practical orbit raising method and system wherein a satellite quickly escapes the Van Allen radiation belts and payload mass and mission life are maximized. A satellite is launched that contains high thrust chemical propulsion thrusters, high specific impulse electric propulsion thrusters and a solar array. The satellite quickly escapes the Van Allen radiation belts by firing the high thrust chemical propulsion thrusters at apogees of intermediate orbits, starting from the transfer orbit initiated by a launch vehicle, to successively raise the perigees until the perigee clears the Van Allen radiation belts. The payload mass and mission life are maximized by firing high specific impulse electric propulsion thrusters to raise the satellite to near synchronous orbit, while steering the thrust vector and solar array to maintain the sun's illumination on the solar array. The chemical and/or electric propulsion thrusters are then fired to achieve geosynchronous orbit.

For any directed sea waves the rocking propelled ship can reach high speeds if it utilizes an sea waves energy by means of 1. A rocking propulsor, which is a couple of hydrofoils kept elastic cross by pivots on the extreme points of streamline narrow keel-rocker, extended far out off long sizes of the ship and thus wags hydrofoils vertically with a speed and an amplitude being sufficient for its proper work; 2. A "pendulum design" of a rocking propelled ship, described by a light wide body with weight, concentrated in a middle lowest ship's part and having a vertical keel with a heavy bob. This design provides the highest efficiency of an energy transmission from waves to ship rocking. In case of need to increase ship's speed some more its rocker should be rigged by an on-board oscillator, which is a central heavy flywheel, which is alternately twisted up to speed by a serve motor in both directions on cross axle in time (resonance) of ship rocking. In order to accelerate and change revolution directions without energy loss the flywheel is supplied by spring returners. If the ship is assigned to navigate in both sea state cases (high or calm) the oscillator is mounted into the rocking propulsor, which is attached to the ship bottom with a hinger. It can be locked to the bottom to be swinged by a rocking ship hull to propell the ship by wave generated rocking motion. It can be unlocked to be swinged by the board oscillator undependently from the ship hull to propel the ship in case of calm sea.

A device having the form of a cylindrical spiral cavity and/or incorporating a helicoidal slot, making it possible to reduce induced drag and marginal swirl (vortex) and increase drag/lift ratio. Integrated with the wingtip or articulated on the wingtip, it can be adapted for all airfoils, in particular the wings of airplanes and gliders, helicopter blades and the tips or tractor or pusher airscrews, wind-powered generator blades and for surface vessels or submarines where lift or direction is used in triple axis (vertical, horizontal, and yaw) displacement. Used in a reverse configuration (undersurface/upper surface) on high speed land vehicles or racing cars, this device, when secured to the tip of each wing, produces a result inversely proportional to speed. The faster the vehicle is traveling, the less drag it generates and greater its ground adhesion.

A vertical take-off and landing aircraft with tiltable power for use on land and in the air includes: a body (3) provided with a drive device; wheels (8) being controlled to make the body move on the ground; and a front thruster (1) and a rear thruster (2) controlling the body to fly or take off/land, wherein transmission brace rods (5) are arranged on both sides of the body, and a first pivot (9) passes transversely through the body and is connected to the transmission brace rods on both sides of the body; wherein the front thruster is fixed on front ends of the transmission brace rods, and the rear thruster is fixed on rear ends of the transmission brace rods; wherein the central axes of the front and rear thrusters are perpendicular to the plane formed by the two transmission brace rods. By controlling a tilting angle of the front/rear thrusters, this aircraft has two basic functions of vertical take-off/landing and horizontal flight, so as to facilitate conversion between land travel and air flight. During flight in the air, the aircraft body always remains in horizontal state, thereby making the occupants feel comfortable and providing them with broad vision so as to operate the aircraft safely.

A wake absorber, wherein an aquatic vehicle with a propulsor mounted on the vehicle and operative to propel the vehicle through a water medium, has a wake absorber mounted on the vehicle aft of the propulsor. The wake absorber includes an artificial muscle surface adapted to be impinged upon by a wake created by the propulsor. The wake absorber further includes electrodes mounted on the artificial muscle surface. Pressure of the wake upon the muscle surface exercises a bending force on the surface, which creates energy that is recovered by the electrodes as electrical power that can be digitized. Energy removed from the muscle surface by the electrodes weakens the wake and renders the wake less pronounced visually and acoustically.

A rotatable thruster aircraft includes a fixed wing; rotatable thruster assemblies, each including first and second thrusters that provide rotation via differential thrust; and vertical lift thrusters, optionally connected via an elongated member; and an aircraft control unit, including a processor, a non-transitory memory, an input/output component, and a power manager that controls specific power applied to the thrusters.

An aircraft has wings configured to twist during flight. Inboard and outboard propulsion devices, such as turbofans or other propulsors, are connected to each wing, and are spaced along the wing span. A flight controller independently controls thrust of the inboard and outboard propulsion devices to significantly change flight dynamics, including changing thrust of outboard propulsion devices to twist the wing, and to differentially apply thrust on each wing to change yaw and other aspects of the aircraft during various stages of a flight mission. One or more generators can be positioned upon the wing to provide power for propulsion devices on the same wing, and on an opposite wing.

A hybrid-electric propulsion system for an aircraft includes a propulsor and a turbomachine. The turbomachine includes a high pressure turbine drivingly coupled to a high pressure compressor through a high pressure spool. The hybrid electric propulsion system further includes an electrical system including a first electric machine, a second electric machine, and an electric energy storage unit electrically connectable to the first and second electric machines. The first electric machine is coupled to the high pressure spool of the turbomachine and the second electric machine is coupled to the propulsor for driving the propulsor to provide a propulsive benefit for the aircraft. The hybrid electric propulsion system also includes a controller configured to provide electrical power from an electric power source to the first electric machine to drive the first electric machine to start, or assist with starting, the turbomachine.