Posted by hakonjdjohnsen 1 day ago
Even cheaper:lift-off on Steam. It's a simulator, you can then just get a controller (I'd recommend a TX10 to start with, a TX16 if you think you're going to be serious about this stuff) and hook it up to the computer.
Good luck & have fun!
This is a newer trend in mechanical design that leverages more complex control software to overcome mechanical issues. A good example is https://turntide.com/
Smaller, cheaper, more numerous offensive drones?
What's interesting is that the Ukrainians are building drones near their front lines because if they build them too far away and ship them in, the game has evolved and those drones are already yesterday's news.
It's cool in that it can hover and do quadcopter type flight with only a single motor, and it's that second part that is interesting, because a fixed wing can also do a prop hang, but it can't do quadrotor-like flight from there.
It's usefulness is likely to be in other areas -- mainly applications where that flight mode is important.
Both sides 3d print parts near front lines. Just to be clear.
Especially when it comes to drops.
I used to be super stoked about it.
But watching drones kill civilians kind of ruined it. [0]
Then again ... they do put a dent in superpowers powers apparently so ... like I said ... I am torn.
My prediction is that future wars will actually involve increasingly fewer humans and will be more about tech+manufacturing vs. tech+manufacturing. And of course insurgents + lowcost tech vs. increasingly nonlethal hightech.
This would allow wars to continue without as much of the growing political backlash.
A significant portion of Russia's attacks are purely on civilians. Even Ukraine's attacks on RU targets have civilian side casualties.
Terrorism will probably always be a thing.
I guess the most important thing is to spread the tech then... make it fair at least? (Like this guy is doing)
Quadcopters that are designed for 45 min to 1 hr loiter time carrying a useful payload, while not being too big for a person to move around seem to be converting on 15 to 18 inch size prop and motor and esc combinations carefully chosen for optimal grams/watt thrust.
I've built a whole slew of drones over the last couple of years, quadcopters are hard to beat on many axis. But I have some proof that it may be possible to do substantially better with a monocopter in terms of efficiency. The hard problems you will then have to solve are payload attachment because unbalance is very tricky to deal with (whereas that is trivial in a quadcopter) as well as transitioning to level flight so that you can make good forward speed.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=darpa+lif...
And what can be learned from full-scale classical helicopters that frequently carry underhanging payloads?
(I don't at all wanna be the typical HN person who thinks their questions about a field they know nothing about are in any way insightful. I'm just trying to learn.)
For a fixed payload it is indeed possible to set up the balance beforehand, even then you will probably end up with a drone that will translate slower or faster depending on the inbalance instead of hovering in place.
I have to wonder why this guy didn't give his drone a leash while testing so it couldn't go flying off. It's the first thing that popped into my head, so I'm sure it's something he thought of as well and didn't use for a good reason. Maybe a string would get caught in the blades?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0POjjIC5xs
It does use a bunch of external sensors but the control is all with just the prop and rapid speed changes, they don't even use a variable pitch prop.
I like how he built a test stand near 7:22, which solves the motor flying off problem and is probably easier to iterate on. It reminds me of how rockets are tested.