2963 results about "Rotary wing" patented technology

A rotary wing aircraft is provided having at least three rotor pairs. Each rotor pair has an upper rotor and a lower rotor. During operation, the upper rotor and lower rotor rotate around a shared rotor axis with the upper rotor rotating in a first direction and the lower rotor rotating in an opposite direction By independently controlling the speed of rotation of each upper rotor and each lower rotor the aircraft can be made to ascend, descend, move forward, move backward, move side to side, yaw right and yaw left by only varying the relative speeds of rotations of the upper rotors and lower rotors.

Embodiments of the invention relate to a vehicle comprising a plurality of inclined rotors that are operable to provide at least one of thrust and torque vectoring according to a desired thrust and / or torque vectors.

A rotary wing aircraft apparatus includes a body and a rotor pair connected to the body by an arm. The rotor pair has an upper rotor driven by an upper motor and rotating about an upper rotor axis and a lower rotor driven by a lower motor and rotating about a lower rotor axis. The upper and lower rotor axes are tilted with respect to each other. Tilting the axes away from the arm increases the distance from the rotor blades to the arm, and decreases the risk of the blades of the rotor contacting the arm. In an aircraft with a plurality of arms extending from the body, and a rotor assembly connected to each arm, the arms can be pivoted from a flying position, where the arms extend laterally outward to a folded position where the arms are positioned substantially parallel and adjacent to each other.

A hybrid power plant (5) for an aircraft (1) comprises at least: a hybrid drive system (37) having a main on-board electricity network (16) and an auxiliary electricity network (34); and a selective adaptation interface (38) arranged to enable electrical energy to be exchanged selectively between the main and auxiliary electricity networks (16; 34). At least one engine and a hybrid drive auxiliary electrical machine (7, 31) are mechanically connected to a transmission (8); said machine (7) being electrically connected to at least one auxiliary electrical bus (36) in parallel with at least one auxiliary device for delivering electric charge.

A rotary-wing apparatus that is aeronautically stable, easy to fly with a multidimensional control, small size, and safe to fly and low cost to produce. The rotary-wing apparatus includes a coaxial counter rotating rotor drive providing lifting power with an inherent aeronautical stability; Auxiliary propellers that face the direction of flight and are located on opposite sides of said coaxial Rotary-wing apparatus and enable flying forwards, backwards and perform yawing; A rotary-wing coaxial helicopter toy that is remotely controlled and safe to fly in doors and out doors, while performing exciting maneuvers even by untrained kids

A tilt-rotor compound VTOL aircraft has a multiple-flow thrust generator(s) comprising a gas-powered tip-jet driven rotor(s) having a thrust-augmentation ratio of at least two; that tilts about the aircraft's pitch axis wherein the rotor's plane of rotation is substantially horizontal for VTOL operations and the rotor's plane of rotation is substantially vertical forward flight operations. A relatively small fixed-wing sustains the aircraft during forward flight. Compressed exhaust gas from the fan-jet engine(s) is ducted to a manifold having valves which control power to the multiple-flow thrust generator(s) and to the jet exhaust nozzle(s) as supplemental thrust for forward propulsion and yaw control. The manifold also serves to distribute compressed gas to the dead engine side of the aircraft in the event of a dead engine emergency, and to reaction jets for attitude control during VTOL operations. Thus this tilt-rotor aircraft is more efficient, faster, immensely lighter, less complex and less expensive to purchase and maintain than its shaft-driven counterparts.

A vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) rotary-wing air-craft is sized and configured to match a payload container such as a standardized Joint Modular Intermodal Container (JMIC). The aircraft may be an Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) that is capable of autonomously engaging and disengaging the container so that the aircraft can pick up and drop off the JMIC with minimum human intervention.

A method and apparatus for a composite helicopter comprising a rotary wing parent vehicle with various modular cabins detachable therefrom to facilitate various configuration aircraft platforms, dual operation and modular economy.

A hybrid propulsion aircraft is described having a distributed electric propulsion system. The distributed electric propulsion system includes a turbo shaft engine that drives one or more generators through a gearbox. The generator provides AC power to a plurality of ducted fans (each being driven by an electric motor). The ducted fans may be integrated with the hybrid propulsion aircraft's wings. The wings can be pivotally attached to the fuselage, thereby allowing for vertical take-off and landing. The design of the hybrid propulsion aircraft mitigates undesirable transient behavior traditionally encountered during a transition from vertical flight to horizontal flight. Moreover, the hybrid propulsion aircraft offers a fast, constant-altitude transition, without requiring a climb or dive to transition. It also offers increased efficiency in both hover and forward flight versus other VTOL aircraft and a higher forward max speed than traditional rotorcraft.

The invention relates to the technical field of four-rotor aircrafts, in particular to a small four-rotor aircraft control system and method based on an airborne sensor. The small four-rotor aircraft control system based on the airborne sensor comprises an inertia measurement unit module, a microprocessor, an electronic speed controller, an ultrasonic sensor, an optical flow sensor, a camera, a wireless module and a DC brushless motor. By merging the information of a light and low-cost airborne sensor system, the six-DOF flight attitude of the aircraft is estimated in real time, and a closed-loop control strategy comprising inner-loop attitude control and outer-ring position control is designed. Under the environment without a GPS or an indoor positioning system, flight path control and aircraft formation control based on the leader followed strategy over the rotorcraft are achieved through the airborne sensor system and the microprocessor, wherein the flight path control comprises autonomous vertical take-off and landing, indoor accurate positioning, autonomous hovering and autonomous flight path point tracking. According to the small four-rotor aircraft control system and method, a reliable, accurate and low-cost control strategy is provided for achieving autonomous flight of the rotorcraft.

A single-tilt-rotor VTOL airplanes have a tiltable rotor attached to an elongated power pod containing the collective and cyclical pitch mechanism, and transmission. The power pod is pivotably attached to a base that is slidably mounted on a pair of slotted guide beams attached on top of the roof of the fuselage. The guide beams run longitudinally from the front of the aircraft to past the center of gravity (CG) of the aircraft in order to transport the power pod from the front section to the center section when converting from the horizontal cruising mode to the VTOL mode. In the horizontal cruising mode, the power pod perched horizontally on top of the fuselage front section with sufficient clearance for the rotor to rotate in front of the aircraft. Upon transitioning to the VTOL mode, a telescopic actuator is used to pivot the power pod vertically while a cable-winch system is used to move the entire power pod and base assembly rearwardly to stop at the center of gravity of the aircraft, and vice versa, thus allowing the power pod to travel significantly rearward and forward as required for proper balancing of vertical lift as the power pod pivots 90 degrees during transition from VTOL mode to the cruising mode. A single piston engine, or a single or pair of turbofan engines, mounted slightly to the rear of the CG, have drive shafts that can be clutched and mated onto respective receiving shaft from the transmission within the power pod in order to power the tiltable rotor. The engine is also attached to a propeller for horizontal propulsion, or if turbofan engines are used, jet thrust is generated for horizontal cruise. A small anti-torque rotor or ducted fan toward the tail of the aircraft is mechanically coupled to the engine via a drive shaft to provide the necessary side-way thrust to overcome the main rotor's torque. In the horizontal cruising mode, the tiltable rotor is allowed to windmill slowly at a minimum rotational speed necessary to maintain the integrity of the rotor blades. The same propulsion principle can be applied to VTOL airplanes having more than one tiltable rotor, thereby can potentially increase the speed, range and reliability of current twin-wing-mounted-tilt-rotor aircraft. A pair of high-aspect-ratio wings on both sides of the fuselage provide highly efficient lift during cruising flight with very little induced drag. Conventional horizontal and vertical tail planes are used for directional stability in the cruising mode.

Systems, methods, and devices provide a vehicle, such as an aircraft, with rotors configured to function as a tri-copter for vertical takeoff and landing (“VTOL”) and a fixed-wing vehicle for forward flight. One rotor may be mounted at a front of the vehicle fuselage on a hinged structure controlled by an actuator to tilt from horizontal to vertical positions. Two additional rotors may be mounted on the horizontal surface of the vehicle tail structure with rotor axes oriented vertically to the fuselage. For forward flight of the vehicle, the front rotor may be rotated down such that the front rotor axis may be oriented horizontally along the fuselage and the front rotor may act as a propeller. For vertical flight, the front rotor may be rotated up such that the front rotor axis may be oriented vertically to the fuselage, while the tail rotors may be activated.

A helicopter rotor blade includes a main airfoil body (12) and a movable control flap (3) incorporated in the trailing edge profile of the airfoil body. The flap (3) is movably connected to the main airfoil body (12) by a flexibly bendable junction element (4), and is actuated by a piezoelectric actuator unit (5) via a push / pull rod (6) and a lever arm (7), whereby the control flap is deflected relative to the main airfoil body. The junction element (4) is preferably a continuous integral fiber-reinforced composite component having a flexible bending portion (42) with a reduced thickness in comparison to the adjoining portions, whereby the reinforcing fibers extend continuously through the joint in the direction of the connection between the main airfoil body and the flap.

An aircraft load management system that determines the position of an aircraft cargo hook for display to an aircrew. The cargo hook positional information may alternatively or additionally be communicated directly to a flight control system and a winch control system to automate and coordinate flight control inputs with winch operation to actively position the cargo hook. Data transfer from the cargo through a data link system also provides the load management system with exact position of the cargo load connection points even prior to attachment of the cargo hook to the load. The load management system also includes anti-sway algorithms for active load stability inputs to the flight control system and to alter flight control laws and automatically compensate for C.G. excursions.

The present invention discloses systems and methods for the performance enhancement of rotary wing aircraft through reduced torque, noise and vibration. In one embodiment, a system includes a sail having an aerodynamic shape positioned proximate to a tip of the rotor blade. An actuator may be configured to rotate the sail relative to the blade tip. a A control system receives information from a rotorcraft system and commands the actuator to rotate the sail to a predetermined favorable rotor blade operating condition. In another embodiment, a method includes configuring the rotorcraft in a selected flight condition, communicating input signals to a control system operable to position sails coupled to tips of blades of a rotor assembly, processing the input signals according to a constraint condition to generate sail positional information, and transferring the sail positional information to the sail.

A helicopter rotating hub mounted vibration control system for a helicopter rotary wing hub having a periodic vibration while rotating at a helicopter operational rotation frequency. The helicopter rotating hub mounted vibration control system includes an annular ring rotary housing attachable to the helicopter rotary wing hub and rotating with the helicopter rotary wing hub at the helicopter operational rotation frequency. The annular ring housing is centered about the rotary wing hub axis of rotation and has an electronics housing cavity subsystem and preferably an adjacent coaxial rotor housing cavity subsystem. The rotor housing cavity subsystem contains a first coaxial frameless AC ring motor having a first rotor with a first imbalance mass and a second coaxial frameless AC ring motor having a second rotor with a second imbalance mass. The electronics housing cavity subsystem contains an electronics control system which receives sensor outputs and electrically controls and drives the first coaxial frameless AC ring motor and the second coaxial frameless AC ring motor such that the first imbalance mass and the second imbalance mass are directly driven at a vibration canceling rotation frequency greater than the helicopter operational rotation frequency wherein the helicopter rotary wing hub periodic vibration is reduced.

Embodiments of the present invention relate to a rocket or ballistic launch rotary wing air vehicle.

The invention discloses an optical flow-based four-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle flight control method. The method comprises the following steps: calculating optical flow information by utilizing an image pyramid-based Lucas. Canard method; processing the optical flow information by adopting a Kalman filtering method; performing data fusion on an optical flow and an attitude angle, and calculating the horizontal displacement of an unmanned aerial vehicle; and designing a proportional-differential controller, including determining a four-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle dynamic model and designing a control algorithm. By the optical flow-based four-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle flight control method disclosed by the invention, the horizontal position information of the unmanned aerial vehicle is calculated by fusing the image information and the attitude angle information acquired by utilizing an airborne camera; and the position of a small unmanned aerial vehicle is controlled by taking the unmanned aerial vehicle horizontal position information as the feedback information of an outer ring PD (proportional-differential).

A tiltrotor aircraft includes a fuselage; a wing member having a first rib, a second rib, a first spar, second spar; and an upper wing skin; an engine disposed at a fixed location relative to the wing member; and a proprotor having a spindle gearbox, rotor mast, and a plurality of rotor blades drivable in rotation about the rotor mast, the spindle gearbox being rotatable about a conversion axis. The spindle gearbox is located above the upper wing skin of the wing member.

Systems and methods for transitioning an aircraft between helicopter and fixed wing flight modes are provided. In one embodiment, an aircraft comprises a plurality of wings each having a spar and a flap; a flap actuator configured to move the flap with respect to the spar; and a center section rotatably coupled to each spar. The center section includes at least one spar actuator configured to rotate at least one of the wings about a rotational axis of the spar when the aircraft transitions between helicopter and fixed wing flight modes.

The present invention relates to a device for locking the pitch of the blades of a main rotor of a rotary-wing aircraft in which each blade is firstly rotated about an axis of rotation of the rotor by a rotor mast and is secondly constrained to pivot about a longitudinal pitch axis of the blade together with a pitch lever which is controlled by a pitch link connected to a rotary plate rotating with the rotor mast and belonging to a cyclic swash plate mechanism in which the rotary plate is rotatably mounted on a non-rotary plate capable of sliding axially along said rotor mast and of tilting in any direction relative to the rotor mast under the drive of at least three servo-controls each comprising a body fixed on a support secured to the aircraft and a rod having a free end secured to the non-rotary plate. The device includes immobilization means for holding the rod of each of the servo-controls relative to the corresponding body so as to lock the blades in a predetermined pitch position.

The invention relates to a foldable six-axis multi-rotor c belonging to the field of aviation aircrafts. The foldable six-axis multi-rotor aircraft comprises an aircraft body, motors, six groups of motor mounting hoods, rotors and six supporting arms, wherein a motor is mounted in each motor mounting hood, rotors are arranged outside the motor mounting hood and connected with the motor, the aircraft body is connected with each motor mounting hood through the supporting arms, an aircraft control system, a sensor, a batter and an oil supply system are mounted in the aircraft body, and the six supporting arms comprise two fixed supporting arms and four rotary supporting arms. Through the dual folding structure comprising the horizontal rotary folding of the four supporting arms and the vertical rotary folding of the six supporting arms, the aircraft has smaller geometrical size, is convenient to store and effectively solves the problems of inconvenient carrying and transportation of the multi-axis multi-rotor aircraft.

The invention relates to a miniature electric ducted propeller type intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle, which consists of a ducted casing, a bracket, a coaxial counter propeller, a fairing, a battery, a motor, a driving control circuit and a microcontroller. The machine body has a dish-shaped appearance; and the ducted casing is arranged outside a rotor wing to eliminate flight safety threat caused by the traditional structure of the exposed rotor wing and improve the working efficiency of the propeller. The aerial vehicle adopts a design of the coaxial counter double-rotor wing, cancels the inertial rotation of the machine body without a tail rotor wing, saves materials and expands the operating space. The propeller is driven by the motor; the motor is under the servo control of the driving control circuit; and the horizontal motion of the aerial vehicle in the air is implemented by a deflectable guide plate below the propeller in a matching mode. In addition, a multi-azimuth convenient slot is formed inside the ducted casing of the aerial vehicle for mounting and detaching various sensors at any time; and the microcontroller comprehensively processes information fed back by each sensor and performs autonomous flight control according to a task.

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.

A transmission gearbox for a rotary-wing aircraft includes a main gearbox and a variable speed gearbox in meshing engagement with the main rotor gearbox. The variable speed gearbox permits at least two different RPMs for the main rotor system without disengaging the engine(s) or changing engine RPMs. The variable speed gearbox includes a clutch, preferably a multi-plate clutch, and a freewheel unit for each engine. A gear path drives the main gearbox in a “high rotor speed mode” when the clutch is engaged to drive the main rotor system at high rotor rpm for hover flight profile. A reduced gear path drives the main gearbox in a “low rotor speed mode” when the clutch is disengaged and power is transferred through the freewheel unit, to drive the main rotor system at lower rotor rpm for high speed flight. The variable speed gearbox may be configured for a tail drive system that operates at a continuous speed, a tail drive system that changes speed with the main rotor shaft or for no tail drive system.

A control system for a power generation apparatus and method may fly a rotorcraft rotary wing at an altitude above the nap of the earth. A tether, suitably strong and flexible, connected to the rotorcraft framing is pulled with a force generated by the rotary wing. The force is transmitted to a ground station that converts the comparatively linear motion of the tether being pulled upward with a lifting force. The linear motion may be transferred to a rotary motion in the ground station to rotate and electrical generator. The tether may be retrieved and re-coiled by controlling the rotorcraft aircraft to basically fly down at a speed and lift force to support recovery of the rotorcraft at a substantially reduced force compared to the larger lifting force in effect during the power-developing payout of the tether. Moreover, the duty cycle of such a system is substantially increased over any terrestrially based or tower-mounted wind turbine mechanisms.

A drive system for a high speed rotary-wing aircraft includes a combiner gearbox in meshing engagement with a main gearbox. The combiner gearbox is driven by one or more engines such that a main rotor system and a translational thrust system are driven thereby. The engine drives the combiner gearbox and thus the main gearbox through an overrunning clutch. The drive system permits the main rotor system RPM to be controlled by offloading power to the translational thrust system during a high speed flight profile.