Comment by leoedin
14 hours ago
A really neat concept. It uses a special hinge design, a magnetic encoder and torque modulation to control the lift of the rotor as it spins. Completely negates the need for a conventional helicopter's swash plate.
The single motor does have the pretty major downside that it spins the moment it's in the air. I suspect a 2 motor drone with a tail motor would be a lot more practical. But I really like how mechanically simple the rotor hinge design is - it pushes all the complexity into the control algorithm.
Note that the concept itself has been done before in RC helicopters. The only difference here is using a one-propeller drone.
https://hackaday.com/2020/06/25/building-and-flying-a-helico...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d80oXSCcHTk
Yep, he mentions the video you linked as well. (Mentioning because I watched the video you linked first.)
Perhaps there are specific applications where the payload spinning could be an advantage, imaging/scanning perhaps (which in the video is going to be in the next iteration for the builder).
I don't think it would be all that useful, give the very way it works (modulating motor speed) - your rotation would not be consistent in speed during even a single turn, which makes exposure times different each frame, and possibly too low.