Posted by Neky Gandhi on October 29, 2010 at 8:50am
What are the differences among using single engine, twin engine, three engine helicopters, and quadrotor? I mean what are the differences in flight characteristics?
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Any flight vehicle has to be able to move. Something has to produce pitch, roll and yaw to be able to move in any direction.
A single rotor (could be an engine or electric motor, but the rotor blade is the real criteria.) produces torque. If you rotate a single blade the thrust rotates the vehicle in the opposite direction. Hence the tail rotor to counteract the torque. The rotor has to be tilted to be able to change pitch. This results in a complicated control that is inherently difficult to fly.
Two rotors can be coaxial where one is on top of the other. This cancels the torque effect, but makes it even more complicated to build. Tandem rotors separate the two rotors.
Three rotors allows you to change pitch, roll and yaw by changing the thrust on the individual rotors. It requires a combination of thrusts to do this.
A quadrotor uses four rotors and allows changing the thrust on two opposite rotors to change direction and is inherently simpler to control.
Attempting to fly any of them directly with an RC control is very difficult. The development of the ArduCoptor software for the quadrotor makes it possible to fly and have the computer keep you from crashing. (It can't avoid that tree, however!)
Replies
A single rotor (could be an engine or electric motor, but the rotor blade is the real criteria.) produces torque. If you rotate a single blade the thrust rotates the vehicle in the opposite direction. Hence the tail rotor to counteract the torque. The rotor has to be tilted to be able to change pitch. This results in a complicated control that is inherently difficult to fly.
Two rotors can be coaxial where one is on top of the other. This cancels the torque effect, but makes it even more complicated to build. Tandem rotors separate the two rotors.
Three rotors allows you to change pitch, roll and yaw by changing the thrust on the individual rotors. It requires a combination of thrusts to do this.
A quadrotor uses four rotors and allows changing the thrust on two opposite rotors to change direction and is inherently simpler to control.
Attempting to fly any of them directly with an RC control is very difficult. The development of the ArduCoptor software for the quadrotor makes it possible to fly and have the computer keep you from crashing. (It can't avoid that tree, however!)