The Cyclorotor Is Now a Match For Propellers!

The cyclorotor now has a thrust to weight ratio of 4.69:1, which I believe means that it now has nearly double the thrust to weight ratio of any other cyclorotor. The max thrust produced (328g) and power consumed (78 Watts) are the exact same as a 6x3 conventional propeller (A 6x3 prop has only a 20% difference in the disk loading from the cyclorotor).

Sources:
University of Maryland cyclocopter - Elena Shrestha's youtube
Texas A&M cyclocopter - Mobile Benedict's youtube
Cyclotech cyclocopter - Cyclotech website and youtube

Specs:
- 150mm rotor diameter
- 150mm airfoil wingspan
- NACA 0022 airfoil with a 50mm chord
- 2004 1900kv motor
- 6:1 GT2 belt driven gear ratio
- ~3000 rpm at max throttle
- 328g static thrust
- 70g rotor weight
- 4.0 g/W

[oadka]

Babe wake up, new cyclorotor video just dropped

[phillipja]

Cyclorotors are the future and better than a propeller. What a fantastic idea to use small rc cyclerotor drones with camera for stable videos and photography on a very windy day.

[noahkohls]

This is amazing. Great job! I see a lot of potential for cyclorotors and your research is at the forefront. Can’t wait to see what you do next!

[umslkju]

I agree with you on principle. Specifically deficiency is near regular propellers, and that way it will always be an issue.

The big thing is we have stronger and lighter materials now, and you could put a fuel cell that gets better efficiency than combustion.

Just the acoustics and maneuverability is generally enough. We have materials now they can make it much much lighter.

[getstuk]

Based on noise alone I could see the military being very interested, perhaps for helicopters, but maybe drones too

[ronintoecutter]

I’ve always been a fan of coaxial propellers. The cyclo rotors are brilliant. A lot of technology from the past is coming up. A three phase motor that is in development was actually invented 200 years ago. That is an example. I want to know

[marcfruchtman]

This was really great research... thanks for the video.

[JustinPEstrada]

now that you have great gains using 3d printed parts, will you use a more difficult to fabricate but perhaps lighter and stronger materials for the frame and parts? perhaps some carbon fiber or titanium frame with an aerogel/carbonfiber propeller? Maybe you can take this even further. Great video I'm excited for the future or drones and transport.

[Averagebreatherofoxygen]

I'm subbing this is actually interesting

[forrestallison]

I'm curious if maybe your test stand for the fixed propeller is way too short. Looking at it, most of the thrust is going to blow down onto the scale, and that's going to make it appear to have way less thrust. Also the backwash is going to mess with the whole thing. I would recommend making a standard test stand if you're going to be comparing thrust

[lowkey]

Awesome build and explanation. You need to update the design. For optimization. I have a few ideas to improve the design greatly

[crackedemerald]

cyclorotor idea: instead of using a simple, rotating arm to offset the cyclic pitch of the rotor, what if it was two spiral cam discs with opposite spirals, where the end of the arm is located in their intersection. the advantage would be: adjustable magnetue of pitch, but the disadvantages would be weight, higher friction, and another servo motor and their respective control circuitry

[armorhide]

Besides weight I imagine a major hurdle is just complexity

[infiniteapplist]

how does the pitching contrls work? i cant really tell

[MarcStollmeyer]

For power to weight ratio it really needs to be the entire vehicle weight, not just the thruster. Most commercially available drones are greater than 2:1 power to weight ratio, with 2:25:1 being in my experience a good ratio for sensor carrying aircraft, 3-5 for sporty drones, and 5-10 for racing drones. Anything under 1.5:1 is way too sluggish to for good control.

Higher power ratio also helps with efficiency, as efficiency at max thrust is usually garbage compared to lower thrust values. If you were to get 8-10 grams of thrust per watt at hover throttle then this would rival propeller drones. The most efficient drones hover above 10 g/W.

[FarmerFpv]

Is this a food processor? Can it accept whole fruits and vegetables or do they need to be cut in quarters?

Thanks.

[rawhidelamp]

Have you considered vertical fins on the rotors to counteract possible vortices? Like how that company did? Love this project it looks awesome

[acubsshadow]

Would it effect take off or balance to use only 3 blades per rotor? Or maybe two? Probably an obvious hypothesis you’ve already reached on the path to weighing less but im curious

[RonaldWestcott]

I think this would make a great wind generator with low speed wind conditions and being low noise would be good for the neighbours.
What do you think ??

[jamesrobertfellabaum]

Your standard prop test is so close to the scale you are getting "in ground effect". Raise it to the height of the cyclo rotor axis and compare the numbers again...the result will be less.