I've been reading this site for the past week or so, and it has really inspired me to get more into robotics. I've had a couple of ideas for robots that I want to make in the future, I am going to start of with fritsl's starting robot, but I just wanted to share some of my future ideas to see what you guys think.
My favorite of a bunch of (probably a bit rubbish) ideas is for a UAV. There don't seem to be many posted on the site, and I expect that making it will be pretty hard (defiantly not a first robot). My ideas are partly based upon the lego model #8222 which features two movable rotors, I would also probably need some smaller fans for stabalisation. Here are some of my first drawings:
The top two are just a helicopter and the lego model i sketched, the bottom two are my designs, I ought to label them to make it clearer for you, and me in future:
Hope this is fairly clear, my writing isn't very good.
Here are some more design pictures:
These are partly designed upon the Eurocopter PAH-2 Tiger (featured in Goldeneye if anyone is a James Bond fan). But my final design will probably look more like the dragonfly from Trek Aerospace, on a much smaller scale as it will definatly not be a PAV.
What do you think?
Looks like fun just make
Looks like fun just make sure you make it as light as possible or it won’t get lift. Good luck!
I also what to make a UAV, I
I also what to make a UAV, I always have and hope to soon. I’m not an expert but I’m fairly certain a PC fan won’t have enough lift. Look on the web for electric RC plan parts. Especially something called a “duct fan” they are super strong also hair dryers have small DC motors inside with fan already attached. Anyway I hope to see more of your plans in the future. Maybe ill post a few of mine when I get home. Would be nice to have a thread going. You need to learn a lot of programming for true unmanned flight. But you can do it!!!
Here’s a commercial version
Here’s a commercial version of your UAV.
THey have a video page, but was unable toi see it in Firefox.
I was thinking of duct fans
I was thinking of duct fans for the main lift, but pc fans (the really small ones) just for stabilisation, and possible movement, but I would hope to articulate the ‘wings’ that hold the main fans for movement. I don’t know if this would really work, it might just ruin the structure of the whole thing and cause it to break.
As I think I said, this is completely beyond me at the moment but maybe once I’m more used to robotics I will start this project. I would really like to see your ideas, seeing something from someone who knows a bit more about it would really help!
Ok I’ll scan them in soon,
Ok I’ll scan them in soon, but same as you there just ideas for the future. I love that one robologist just showed. So far my idea was to build something similar to a Drown used by the military. But the stability of that thing was incredible, would be very nice for surveillance. I made a 3’ wing in aerospace engineering class which flew very good, so at least I know how to make one of them.
Yeah, that is the sort of
Yeah, that is the sort of thing I was thinking of, but a bit longer, perhaps wider spaced fans on articulated ‘wings’. Those use 450watt motors, and can lift nearly 3kg max, so if I can find powerful enough fans it should be alright.
I want to go for a more sleek look, if that is at all possible with my skills. Perhaps an Apache gunship look, (although this might sound confusing with my designs, it seems to work in my mind, if I can draw it I will.)
This place has some very powerful stuff, but mostly far out of my price range. http://www.Ductedfans.com/Ducted_fan_impellers_EDF_units.html (sorry the link thing doesn’t work in safari for me)
Have you thought about …
Have you thought about buying a couple of this miniature RC/InfraRed controlled helicopters to get you started? That is, to get a proof of concept vehicle happening.
UAV fun
A UAV that would have the ability to hover (apparently anyway) like the one your proposing could be tricky. To do this right, you need to look into dynamic balance and feedback. Keeping the lift “balanced” on both fans would be crucial, especially while the UAV is in motion, otherwise the UAV would at some point go into self-oscillating side to side and just simply flip over. Here is a website I ran across awhile ago you might find really useful http://diydrones.com/ Lots of articles and how-to’s and some interesting hardware. To give you an idea of SOME of the math’s involved this Wikipedia article has some good stuff.
Yes, RC helicopter stuff should be a good source for material. Don’t get discouraged, it may be a bit harder than you think initially, but keep at it! You are thinking about doing some really interesting stuff that others here would love to see!
Thanks, diydrones looks
Thanks, diydrones looks really good, lots of info and has made me realise that more thought needs to go into this. The motor control would be handled by the processor and code, so I would need to implement the algorithms into this. I guess that accelerometers would also help to detect and stop the uav from flipping or rolling.
Lanternfish, do you mean to build a concept with RC helicopters or what? I don’t quite understand what you are saying.
Things I’m going to need for this project:
- Chassis/frame
- Powerful ducted fans
- gyro/accelerometer (combined)
- distance sensors (IR/Ultrasonic)
- servos (for motor positioning)
- RC module
- controller & code
- gps?
Having another look on
Having another look on the trek aerospace site, The dragonfly is the style I want, but obviously not on the scale of carrying people. I did find a springtail (the PAV) video before but I can’t now.
I don’t know if you are
I don’t know if you are interested since i’ve seen from the pictures that the chassis is going to be different, but in case you want it, i have the link to make a paperwork predator UAV.
The predator looks more like
The predator looks more like what Justin was designing, I have drawn a few more designs, I will put them into the main post. These were partly based upon the Eurocopter PAH-2 Tiger. But after seeing the dragonfly on trek aerospace, I will probably base it more on that.
Blimp design
This person has build a UAV with a blimp.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYd7XxzkwV4&feature=channel_page
it’s is a pretty simple design and you don’t have trouble stabelising this.
Cause an airplain is pretty difficult to stabelise.
You only need to work on the GPS and the other localisation stuff.
I dont know exactly what you
I dont know exactly what you mean by "paperwork predator" but I know I sure wouldnt mind takeing a look!!!
