BIG Drones

weirdjim

weirdjim

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weirdjim
I'm well aware of the new FAA drone rules. Thanks.

I'm peripherally involved with a group that enters the "RoboWars" every year in the heavyweight competition. That's robots weighing 242# or less. That's a significant fraction of an ultralight.

There is no restriction that I can find for aerial combatants. That is, if I can drop a tool steel hyper-pointed 25# weight on a terrestrial battlebot from above I think I can pretty well compete. There are navigation problems to take care of, but motion detectors, magnetometers, infrared and such might be useful.

Problem ... lifting a 25# weight up fifteen feet and moving it around. I've never seen a drone that can carry this kind of a load and we don't have an aeronautics department to do the analysis for me. I just know that it only has to stay aloft for 3 minutes to do its job. Helicopter?

Just fyi, I don't see any restriction on internal combustion engines either, but I'm sure there is a rule about flammable liquids.

:heli:

Thoughts?

Jim
 
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weirdjim said:
Problem ... lifting a 25# weight up fifteen feet and moving it around. I've never seen a drone that can carry this kind of a load
Click to expand...
Some of the larger octocopters that my students have built lift weights on that order.
 
weirdjim said:
I'm well aware of the new drone rules. Thanks.

I'm peripherally involved with a group that enters the "RoboWars" every year in the heavyweight competition. That's robots weighing 242# or less. That's a significant fraction of an ultralight.

There is no restriction that I can find for aerial combatants. That is, if I can drop a tool steel hyper-pointed 25# weight on a terrestrial battlebot from above I think I can pretty well compete. There are navigation problems to take care of, but motion detectors, magnetometers, infrared and such might be useful.

Problem ... lifting a 25# weight up fifteen feet and moving it around. I've never seen a drone that can carry this kind of a load and we don't have an aeronautics department to do the analysis for me. I just know that it only has to stay aloft for 3 minutes to do its job. Helicopter?

Just fyi, I don't see any restriction on internal combustion engines either, but I'm sure there is a rule about flammable liquids.

:heli:

Thoughts?

Jim
Click to expand...

Are you flying these aircraft indoors?
 
weirdjim said:
Powered by electrics or hydrocarbons? Time aloft? Just for grins, why 8 thrusters rather than 4 larger? I'm sure there is an aerodynamic or engineering reason.

Jim
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Electric. A few minutes, 8 lifts twice as much as 4 given the same motor size / motor controller current capacity - it starts to get more expensive as the amps go up and they tend to build with easy to obtain RC brushless stuff. It's easy to drop $1k or more into these.
 

This is a couple years old, so I'm sure there is higher capacity stuff out there now.
 
weirdjim said:
yes

Jim
Click to expand...

Good news is the FAA has no rules for things flown indoors. Just don't burn the place down.

As far as lifting a 25lb object, there are plenty of ag UAS that can do that. Here is a DJI model that can carry 10kg of liquid in a 24kg mtow aircraft.
 
weirdjim said:
Powered by electrics or hydrocarbons? Time aloft? Just for grins, why 8 thrusters rather than 4 larger? I'm sure there is an aerodynamic or engineering reason.

Jim
Click to expand...

Also, 4 cannot tolerate OEI.
 
weirdjim said:
There is no restriction that I can find for aerial combatants. That is, if I can drop a tool steel hyper-pointed 25# weight on a terrestrial battlebot from above I think I can pretty well compete. There are navigation problems to take care of, but motion detectors, magnetometers, infrared and such might be useful.
Click to expand...
If you miss, will the drone be able to hook on to the weight again for another try? How vulnerable will it be during the process (e.g., could the lift cable be snagged by the opponent for an airborne Nantucket sleigh ride?

Not familiar with the competition being entered, but the "Battlebots" series allows contestants to modify the weaponry/armor to optimize against their next opponent. Not sure if the 25kg weight is going to be that effective, especially against a moving target where the owner can up-armor prior to the bout. The higher you can drop it, the more effective, but aiming will be the problem.

Ron Wanttaja
 
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You better post videos of this thing, sounds like a fun project!
 
Call it Weir's Kinetic Robot Penetrator, or WKRP for short.
 
Would this work? The Air Force I believe will be retiring these. Check the salvage sales! ;)

MQ-1_Predator_unmanned_aircraft.jpg
 
wanttaja said:
If you miss, will the drone be able to hook on to the weight again for another try? How vulnerable will it be during the process (e.g., could the lift cable be snagged by the opponent for an airborne Nantucket sleigh ride?

Not familiar with the competition being entered, but the "Battlebots" series allows contestants to modify the weaponry/armor to optimize against their next opponent. Not sure if the 25kg weight is going to be that effective, especially against a moving target where the owner can up-armor prior to the bout. The higher you can drop it, the more effective, but aiming will be the problem.

Ron Wanttaja
Click to expand...

The drill I have in mind is to monitor the g force on a thin cable (picture hanging wire size) attached to the top of the weight. When the g force goes down (indicating the weapon has either hit the target or the ground, an immediate motor command to "pull up" on the weight until it is back near the belly of the aircraft.

Agreed, aiming is the problem. I hope to solve that with a combination of motion, infrared, and magnetometer sensors. It will be one hell of a learning experience for somebody. But college students are resourceful when it comes to stuff like this. They may even invent a reasonable modern version of the Norden bombsight.
 
weirdjim said:
The drill I have in mind is to monitor the g force on a thin cable (picture hanging wire size) attached to the top of the weight. When the g force goes down (indicating the weapon has either hit the target or the ground, an immediate motor command to "pull up" on the weight until it is back near the belly of the aircraft.

Agreed, aiming is the problem. I hope to solve that with a combination of motion, infrared, and magnetometer sensors. It will be one hell of a learning experience for somebody. But college students are resourceful when it comes to stuff like this. They may even invent a reasonable modern version of the Norden bombsight.
Click to expand...

Sounds like an excellent college project. Touches on lots of useful code & hardware. And it might just work. The onto-copters should be able to handle the weight and have some level of fault tolerance. What are planning to use for a controller? Raspberry Pi or similar?
 
If the target has any spinning parts, might consider some kind of cutaway in case the cable gets caught.
 
weirdjim said:
The drill I have in mind is to monitor the g force on a thin cable (picture hanging wire size) attached to the top of the weight. When the g force goes down (indicating the weapon has either hit the target or the ground, an immediate motor command to "pull up" on the weight until it is back near the belly of the aircraft.

Agreed, aiming is the problem. I hope to solve that with a combination of motion, infrared, and magnetometer sensors. It will be one hell of a learning experience for somebody. But college students are resourceful when it comes to stuff like this. They may even invent a reasonable modern version of the Norden bombsight.
Click to expand...
They failed a DARPA Challenge to come up with better drones than what's already availabe.
 
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