Due to the safety aspects of the man drone we "invented" a combination of airbag and parachute with the purpose of opening the parachute in a spit second. We made a small testing sample. and we think it can work. So the idea is that a drone in an emergency situation would ignite a rocket parachute and that this one would open by airbag at the the top. Think that for normal drones (_tumble bee_ ) this might also be interesting. Anyone interested in such development, or sees a need for such parachute that should substantially reduce the the rescue height?
Best Winfried
PS in the blog of my www.thehummingmanproject.com I have a small document for download.
Comments
Dear Daniel, great to hear! If you like like to do some experimentation have a lool at the blog at my site and down load the small document. Best Winfried
This looks fantastic. Something this simple can save a lot of money in case of a failure of the drone.
"sees a need for such parachute that should substantially reduce the the rescue height ?"
Yes, here in France the regulator whant an automatic parachute that open in less than 15 meters for UAV above 4Kg in urban area.
What Justin said, with the person reclining in your machine I guess that parachute will be on the nose so you hit the ground lying down as it were. An in built algorithm to stop your pilot flying in high surface winds might be a plan as well. You don't want to end up being dragged along once down and deflating that inflated parachute might take a while. Having a device to cut it free comes with the risk of that operating on the way down.
Take zero-zero ejection seats, 99% of the time a casualty is not due to the chute opening to slow, but too slow of a reaction time from the pilot.
They have been using rocket assisted emergency chutes on light aircraft and hang gliders for years. In the following video you can see just how rapidly the chute opens and throws the pilot forward. In this instance you can clearly see the reaction time is the slowest aspect. With a rocket assisted chute, this whole process is just a fraction faster, but still, the slowest piece of the puzzle is the pilot.
http://youtu.be/4o3m7xrLuk4
In general, emergency chutes open very rapidly. Conventional chutes have a slip ring that helps to slow the opening, and easing the G-loads. This slip ring essential chokes the canopy wires from spreading too quickly. Emergency chutes generally don't have this, which makes them very abrupt, but also requiring less airspeed and/or altitude loss.