A Flying Ring - Outdoor Experiments

The vehicle combines the advantages of a quadrotor (mechanically simple, robust hover capability, vertical takeoff and land, etc.) and a fixed wing vehicle (efficient high speed forward flight). The annular wing provides lift, enshrouds the propeller blades for safety, and can lead to noise reduction. The vehicle is autonomous. See [1] regarding manufacturing, [2,3] for modelling, [4,5] for state estimation, and [6] for the control algorithm.

Specific power:
Vehicle with flat plate (white) airfoil (mass = 0.717 kg): 116 W/kg at hover, 139 W/kg at 10 m/s
Vehicle with e169-il (blue) airfoil (mass = 0.75 kg): 116 W/kg at hover, 100 W/kg at 10 m/s
FMA Quadrotor (mass = 0.5 kg) [2,7] : 180 W/kg at hover, 300 W/kg at 10 m/s

Researchers: Rajan Gill and Raffaello D'Andrea

* Acknowledgments

* References
[1] Türk, D. A., Fontana, F., Rüegg, F., Gill, R. J., & Meboldt, M. (2017). Assessing the performance of additive manufacturing applications. In DS 87-5 Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 17) (pp. 259-268).

[2] Gill, R., & D'Andrea, R. (2017). Propeller thrust and drag in forward flight. In 2017 IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA) (pp. 73-79).

[3] Gill, R., & D’Andrea, R. (2019). Computationally Efficient Force and Moment Models for Propellers in UAV Forward Flight Applications. Drones, 3(4), 77. doi:10.3390/drones3040077

[4] Gill, R., Mueller, M., & D'Andrea, R. (2020). A Full-order Solution to the Attitude Reset Problem for Kalman Filtering of Attitudes. Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics (In Press).

[5] Gill, R., & D'Andrea, R. (In preparation).

[6] Gill, R., & D'Andrea, R. (2020). An Annular Wing VTOL UAV: Flight Dynamics and Control . Drones, 3(4). doi:10.3390/drones4020014

[7] Lupashin, S., Hehn, M., Mueller, M. W., Schoellig, A. P., Sherback, M., & D’Andrea, R. (2014). A platform for aerial robotics research and demonstration: The flying machine arena. Mechatronics, 24(1), 41-54.

[bobearly]

Stanley Hiller would be freaking out right now. @1:30 the graph shows the large power requirement to hover and to transition to flight but look at the efficiency once flight is achieved. This is a beautiful piece of work. True professional quality engineering and presentation of data.

[thephenom_]

Wow really impressive. The mobility in the air is outstanding.

[IsaacKuo]

Nice! I'd like to see a version with just one prop, with the battery/electronics balancing it. That way, the annular wing rotates and cyclic control is performed by pulsing the prop. Basically, as the prop rotates around, it occupies the position of the normal four props in turn.

With just one prop, it's mechanically simpler.

[erikisberg]

I am impressed with the performance and also Your excellent presentation. For longer range drones this configuration could be a real advantage. Seems like You achieved better cruise performance compared to hover.

[elclay]

Impressive, may you please tell what state estimation is used?

[andrephu-vannguyen]

Very nice transitions! When was this footage taken? Are you still working on this type of vehicle?

[Mike-hrjz]

You’ll get a better results if you take the technology in the blade list fans the Dyson makes combined it with inside props the combination of the two will give you more thrust 15 times more Less power will be needed

[ReapMoney]

Please let me know how do I contact you? Email or IG thanks