This is probably another hair-brained idea.
This is how this thing would (doesn't exist yet) work.
You take this sphere-shaped drone and put it in your hand, it's clean and ergonomic with the exception of a primary button, camera, some closed optional ports, and a seam in the middle.
You push the button, and you throw the ball into the sky.
What happens next:
The accelerometers detect the impulse, flight mode
While simultaneously gathering the aircraft's acceleration decay and orientation (spinning), the up direction is found and then the drone opens up, spins the rotors which the swinging blades fly out due to centrifugal force, then applies positive pitch to the coaxial symmetrical rotors.
Sounds easier than done I realize.
Further it uses an induction based swash plate system which I'm not sure if I can even pull off as the ideal design has a flexible rotor blade that has an embedded vein which bends as a response to current. This suggests constant current being applied to the rotors to sustain positive pitch for lift / general control. Which sounds like more current draw than regular servos and less flight time.
The induction system would have a small computer per rotor (hahaha) that is triggered very quickly and momentarily kept on by capacitors, although the rpms should be enough to keep the control system powered continuously but I imagine that the power needs to be stable.
There are two parts, pretty much a matching set of solenoid/induction coil on each side (the rotor and the control). In the photos A would be the current position solenoid, which the control system solenoid receives (like a brushless motor) and this is the maximum position, from here the other coil transfers the current pitch of this particular rotor and corrects it based on the new input which is then sent back to the rotor and applied to the imbedded vein.
Yeap, sounds insane.
There are variants... basically the idea would be to get something off the ground that uses readily achievable components before looking into the special flexing vein and "gel-rotor". Perhaps skip the induction part entirely... I don't know...
It's not easier than a cross with four motors on it so why bother?
The challenge I guess... if I pulled this off, picking the right main computer system probably arduino and interfacing with I2C for the accelerometer, and AT Command for the micro BLE module, etc... and further getting my own 3D printer that hopefully can print parts that won't disintegrate in rotation.
Yeah... another idea haha, many ideas exist, it's the execution that matters which I have not done.
So is this idea dumb, abandon it before I waste time? I mean I still intend to learn programming but I have to deal with life as well priorities.
I did some brief calculations using tangential velocity, a H calculator for the coils, to see how much power I could transfer in how brief of time as the rotor spins... it seems like it is achievable although 300 winds or 400 winds sounds like a lot of wire. I literally have like 0.003 of a second to transfer energy to a circuit that quickly gets the current setting of the rotor and then sends it to the computer which then sends the new controls back to the rotor which by the time the secondary solenoid pair pass over each other, the power is applied to the rotor to change pitch. That's pretty ridiculous.
I took a wheel, and made it a thousand times harder to make, this is a great idea.
Replies
I did test the three-bladed rotor configuration and they do fly out when you spin them, I made a little model out of a piece of foam, part of a ruler, a hot glue stick, a thumb tack and some pins.