Project 'octohover'. The concept.
Startup 2020
OCTOHOVER – the hovering eight (lat. Octo «eight», and hover )
It’s been my long-term dream. A dream to create a lightweight, compact flying machine. This is not an ornithopter. Let me explain: it is not similar to a bird, it is more of a fly or a bug type. Octohopter takes off vertically and stationarily. The flight may be executed in any direction and there is an ability to hover.
The prehistory of this project is quite old.
As a schoolboy, I used to be an aircraft modeller, and once I even became a champion of regional competitions specializing in experimental models, it was a gyroplane model.
Then I started thinking about the " fly aircraft".
Fly Like a Fly.
In the late 80s, I managed to come up with a special mechanism that moved the flapping wing along the eight-pattern trajectory, while simultaneously turning it at a certain angle of attack, just the same way as flies and other flying insects do. The first working model of the mechanism with experimental wings was built in 1989 in the form of a small model for test stand. The model was flimsy, the mechanism was made roughly, the accuracy was not respected, therefore the construction worked, but it was clearly not perfect, since the corresponding materials were extremely difficult to obtain, I did not have a small electric motor which would be powerful enough. But nevertheless, the model was quite suitable for experiments. A simple strobe was also made and a series of photographs were taken in a darkened room at slow shutter speeds. The images recorded the phase position of the wings and the angles of attack in motion. In general, all ideas of the device drive were validated. But for the wings, a very strong, flexible and very light material was needed. Since such materials simply did not exist at that time, or they were so inaccessible that I was obliged to forget about this idea for a long time. I occasionally returned to this topic in the early 2000s, but only in the last few years at my leisure time I was engaged in thorough development of a prototype for real manufacturing. The unique drive mechanism is already at the patenting stage. One of the advantages of the device is its low noise level. For example, the loud noise from the propellers of quadcopters and helicopters calls into question their functioning as air taxi in settlements.
What is the difference between an 'octohover' and existing ornithopters?
The existing known mechanical structures that perform flapping movements of the wing do not simultaneously force the wing to rotate along its longitudinal axis to the most effective predetermined angle while flapping, and their wing moves flat, providing the same drag when flapping down and up, which allows to create a driving force only due to the natural sail-like bending when interacting with the flow of the environment and the deformation of the soft wing.
In other cases, the design of aircraft wing type profile is used, which creates lift at a horizontal acceleration.
The proposed 'octohover' construction uses a rigid wing to throw the air mass down with its whole surface, and then it returns to the upper stroke point with a zero angle of attack. All this makes propulsion the most efficient, optimally controlled and allows to take off vertically.
There are three main requirements in this project:
- The wing must be very light.
- Nowadays there are modern materials, technologies and opportunities to produce a very light, flexible and strong wing. - The machine component that brings the wing into action and is subject to very significant overloads should be as strong as possible.
- Today all the materials and equipment are available to create such a strong, reliable machine component. - Compact, lightweight and powerful electric motor.
- Such electric motors already exist nowadays, and the use of the innovative electric motor developed and patented by me will provide even greater power performance.
This electric motor is worth considering separately, it was specially developed in order to obtain high power with a low source voltage. It can also be used in electric vehicles and other vehicles. Therefore it might be interesting to everyone involved in electric transport! Therefore–attention to everyone involved in the issue of electric transport! - The links to contacts are at the bottom of the page.
