UAV Propeller Tilting for Position Movement Without Pitching

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) experience unwanted rotational motion during position movement, leading to potential collisions, increased docking time, and reduced operational precision, especially when maintaining posture under external disturbances.

Innovation Solution

Incorporating tilting units with rotation axes perpendicular to the propeller shafts, allowing propeller rotation without tilting the main body unit, and a horizontality maintaining unit with a flywheel to stabilize posture against external forces.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Speed

If the rotational speed of motors is adjusted to move the unmanned aerial vehicle positionally, then the position movement is achieved, but unwanted rotational motion (pitching) occurs inevitably

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveposition movement speedVSAvoidposture stability
Core Design Contradiction:
SpeedVSStability of the object's composition

Solution Approach 1:

The patent divides the control system into two independent parts: motor rotational speed control for position movement and tilting unit control for posture adjustment. This segmentation allows the motors to control position while the tilting units independently manage body orientation, preventing unwanted pitching motion during position changes.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The tilting units act as intermediaries between the motor system and the main body. By tilting the propeller shafts relative to the main body, they mediate the force transmission in a way that enables position movement without transferring rotational motion to the main body, thus maintaining posture stability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Stability of the object's composition

If the rotational speeds of motors are equally adjusted to maintain horizontal posture, then posture control is achieved, but the posture cannot return to original when disturbance occurs

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveposture controlVSAvoidposture recovery under disturbance
Core Design Contradiction:
Stability of the object's compositionVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent incorporates sensors that detect the main body's posture in real-time and feed this information back to the control system. When disturbance occurs, the feedback mechanism triggers automatic adjustment of the tilting units to counteract the disturbance and restore the original posture, ensuring reliable posture recovery.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

3Stability of the object's composition

If additional tilting units are added to control posture during position movement, then posture stability is improved, but device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveposture stabilityVSAvoidstructure complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Stability of the object's compositionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent combines the tilting unit functionality with the existing motor support structure. The tilting units are integrated into the support frames that already hold the motors, merging posture control functionality with the structural framework and reducing overall system complexity despite adding posture control capability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Applied Scientific Principles

This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.

Function Achieved in This Case

This configuration enables stable position movement while maintaining posture, reducing collision risks, improving docking accuracy, and enhancing operational precision and image quality during tasks like aerial photographing, while maintaining stability under external disturbances.

Implementation Method 1

a horizontality maintaining unit which includes a flywheel rotating about a rotation axis perpendicular to an upper surface of the main body unit, and configured to stabilize the main body unit with respect to external forces applied in a horizontal direction

Methodology Applied
Scientific EffectGyroscopic effect: Gyroscope

Data Source

PatentEP3269640B1Unmanned aerial vehicle
Publication Date: 2021.09.08 KOREA AEROSPACE RES INST
  • EP3269640B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3269640B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3269640B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

A technical object of the present invention is to provide an unmanned aerial vehicle capable of performing a position movement while maintaining posture stabilization. To this end, the unmanned aerial vehicle of the present invention includes: a main body unit; a plurality of propeller motors of which the rotational speed is adjusted by the main body unit; supports which extend from the main body unit in order to support the plurality of propeller motors; propellers which are axially coupled to the plurality of propeller motors and output thrust; and tilting units which tilt rotating shafts of the propellers with respect to the main body unit.