Daniel Wibbing's Posts

aerobotX | new airship-drone website

Posted by Daniel Wibbing on July 15, 2015 at 12:35pm

Dear DIY Enthusiasts,

the team working on the development of the airship-drone ObliX now has an officially registered logo and name:

With the new name also comes a completely redesigned website with the new address www.aerobotX.net and lots of exciting new content. Have a look at our “ObliX -vs- Octocopter” comparison on the airship page, browse through a beautiful library or even apply for one of the jobs offered on our join page.

You have found a mistake on our website or have an idea for improvement? Please let us know!

Very much looking forward to your feedback!

Daniel and team aerobotX

ObliX argo - airship-drone

Posted by Daniel Wibbing on May 25, 2015 at 11:46am

Hey DIY enthusiasts!

Today I am proudly presenting to you ObliX argo, the new concept for our airship-drone.
ObliX argo can be operated in two flight modes:

1. Airplane mode:
Propulsion is mainly supplied by the slow turning stern propeller. Maneuvering is achieved by the empennage. Like this, maximum energy efficiency is achieved for traveling long distances.

2. Helicopter mode:
Propulsion and maneuvering is mainly supplied by 8 fast turning electric ducted fans. Like this, maximum maneuverability in all 6 degrees-of-freedom (forward/backward, left/right, up/down, yaw and a little pitch and roll) is achieved instantly.

Read all the details about ObliX argo in our blog-post:
On our homepage we also have an interactive 3D model.

I want to say a big thank you to Johannes Eißing for his great Sleipnir idea and to Alexander Richter for his awesome AirshipLAB! You can read about both of these on our facebook group "Small Airship Union".

Now it's your turn: What do you think about this concept? Do you have questions or suggestions for improvement?

DIY blimp crowdfunding

Posted by Daniel Wibbing on April 2, 2015 at 9:57am

Hello DIY enthusiasts!

Andreas Burkart and his team "Windreiter" are starting a crowdfunding campaign for a DIY blimp, the silent_runner. I flew one myself some time ago and it was really a lot of fun. Being a blimp this aircraft is inherently safe. It is simply not able to crash on the ground and break anything. And with a Mobius camera fixed underneath you suddenly get 1 h of in flight video recording!

At the moment the campaign is in its starting phase, in which they have to build a fan base of at least 50 fans in order to start the funding. Please support them by clicking on "Fan werden" (become fan). It will not cost you anything!

silent_runner on startnext

Unfortunately the video below is in German as the crowdfunding platform startnext is from Germany. However they are also shipping international and if you have any questions, I will be happy to answer.

silent_runner video

ObliX_neo: redesign of multirotor-blimp-drone

Posted by Daniel Wibbing on November 28, 2014 at 1:16pm

We have been silently working for a long time and now it is here:

A complete redesign of ObliX! [http://danielwibbing.wix.com/oblix]

Since I posted the first design for our airship, many experts have contacted me, explaining to me why a lenticular shaped airship would not have very desirable flight characteristics. Their main concerns were:

Lenticular airships are not stable concerning their pitch angle and straight flight (Munk Moment). Consequently the airship will easily pitch up and down.
An oblate spheroid does not have a defined break-off point for the air stream. Instead the break-off point changes position frequently causing a Kármán vortex street, trying to throw the airship off course.
Lenticular airships have a big coefficient of drag.

I especially want to say thank you to Johannes Eißing, Andreas Burkart, Peter Hanickel and Jodoc Elmiger for their valuable advice. Based on their feedback and calculation tools, we started again from scratch. After numerous air-flow simulations, this is the first rough design for the new version "ObliX_neo" we ended up with. The CAD model on ObliX’s homepage will be given a lot more details soon.

We would be very happy to get your advice, questions or any other comments to be able to improve this new design.

Maybe you would even like to join our team? Then feel free to contact me e.g. here.

Best regards,

Daniel

P.S. Have a look at our outdoor test flight with the silent_runner.

ObliX: multirotor-blimp-drone

Posted by Daniel Wibbing on July 22, 2014 at 8:18am

I am very excited to present ObliX to you! ObliX is my multirotor-blimp-drone idea, which will hopefully combine the flight time endurance of a blimp with the agile dynamics of a quadcopter.

The largest dimension of this hybrid-blimp would measure about 3 m and the lifting force of the helium volume would be close to 3 kg.
Starting to build ObliX, I decided to make a development blog about it. To be able to present and discuss the progress in just the way I like, I thought it might be a good idea to make my own website for it. So here it goes:

http://danielwibbing.wix.com/oblix

It would be awesome if you would have a look at my website and support the develop ObliX with your comments. Maybe you would even like to become a member of the development team? Go ahead and contact me!