Have this article read to you at https://youtu.be/4oHwtA3Tab4 It worked for the Mars Pathfinder Rover, and it saves uncounted lives in cars, so why not adapt an airbag for the drone? This is the solution proposed by the present Japanese patent application. Sure, you can fit a deployable parachute to your expensive quadcopter, but it’s […]
Have this article read to you at https://youtu.be/7e6b1ifQDYQ. Phase cancellation is an interesting acoustic phenomenon. If two identical signals are 180 degrees out of phase, they will completely cancel each other out. With the eventual proliferation of delivery drones, noise will be an issue. As Amazon puts it, “the net effect of the noises generated […]
A world of opportunity is awaiting the drone that can fly for over 45 minutes. Here is a version that can fly 100 miles on one gallon of fuel, carrying a gallon of payload. It can hopscotch anywhere in its range and become a small electric generator. This is good news. Flight time is one […]
Simultaneously competing in the category of Most Versatile and Narrowest Patent, this latest patent application throws the proverbial Kitchen Sink into the drone world. Basing its priority on a 2002 Provisional patent application, having gone through not one, not two, but seventeen Continuation patent applications, this application is a testament to how not to use […]
In the early days of aviation, planes used pusher propellers. A pusher prop is typically behind the wing, and the concept probably came from boating, with the ship’s screws located on the stern to push the vessel through water. It took a few years for aerospace engineers to realize that puller props (mounted on the […]
Straight from the depths of ‘duh’, comes this peculiar patent application for separation of electromagnetic interference-causing flight controllers and sensitive sensors that would be useless if in proximity of EM interference. DJI proposes to distance the guts of the controller from the sensor between 3 cm and up to 50 cm away, even if that […]
We’ve all oohed and awed over DJI’s Inspire’s 360-degree camera pan without the gear getting in the way of the shot, but did you know that the design can also “increase the functional space of a coupled payload”? From the reading of the patent application, the camera is only a part of what this thing […]
From the Nightmare files, a flying claw has been patented. A drone is only as good as the clear space it’s flying through. When flying indoors, if the drone encounters an obstacle, game over, right? Not so, says Robert Marcus of Lafayette, CA. In his issued patent for a “Rotocraft”, Mr. Marcus has patented a […]
The Osprey is a problematic animal. Not the bird, the aircraft. It took many years and 36 lives (to date) to design a tilt-propeller ship that can take off like a helicopter and fly like an airplane. What if there is a better design? King Abdullah of Jordan thinks so. A recently-granted US Patent discloses a […]
Although a little older than the up-to-date tech you expect in this blog, Yuneec is emerging as a player in the UAV world, and should be regarded as such. Boasting over 50 patents filed, we found less than that on the USPTO, the present issued patent included. Size and weight are a bane of any flying object. […]