News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight. Parent comment

Re:Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight by Diggsey on Sunday November 15, 2020 @12:07PM (#25102668)
With a helicopter, even if you lose the motor (lift) you still have control by adjusting the pitch, angle and ratio of the blades.

A quadcopter depends on the motors for any control. While it is possible to regain control after a single motor failure on a quadcopter, it's extremely difficult and not something a human pilot could do, so you'd be relying on software. Also, if you don't detect the failure instantly, the craft will flip over before the software can react because of the inherent instability.

Any solution where you have some kind of passive lift and inherent stability (eg. parachute, wing, etc.) is always going to be much safer.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight by HeWhoLurksLate on Sunday November 15, 2020 @02:00PM (#25103693)
Would a proper parachute on a quadcopter be fine in case of motor failure / etc. be okay, then?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight by robotresearcher on Sunday November 15, 2020 @02:59PM (#25104240)
Multirotor designs are not limited to 4 motors. You can add more for redundancy. Four is common because it’s the smallest number that has good control characteristics.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight by im3w1l on Sunday November 15, 2020 @06:01PM (#25105819)
Mind explaining that one? To me it seems they have an unnecessary degree of freedom: the "diagonal" one.

    ox
    xo
What issues do you get with three motors in an equilateral triangle?

EDIT: I managed to find it, with even number of motors you can prevent unwanted yawing, by letting half spin clockwise and other half spin counterclockwise.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight by robotresearcher on Sunday November 15, 2020 @08:31PM (#25106947)
Yep. More generally, you can induce the yaw rate you want (up to a limit) in either direction, including zero.

I’m not an expert but IIRC with three rotors you need to be able to control a bit of roll of just one of them to have stable flight control.

[ Parent | on HN ]