A resurrected hover vehicle won’t fly
through dense forests as easily as the “Star Wars” speeder bikes from
“Return of the Jedi,” however its user friendly controls may one day
permit anyone to fly it without pilot training. The aerial vehicle
resembles a science fiction flying bike with two ducted rotors in place
of wheels, however comes from a design abandoned in the 1960s due to
balance and rollover problems. Aerofex, a California-based firm, set the
stableness issue by creating a mechanical system controlled by two
control bars at knee-level which allows the vehicle to react to a human
pilot’s leaning movements and natural sense of balance. Consider it as
lowering the threshold of flight, down to the domain of ATV’s
(all-terrain vehicles),” said Mark De Roche, an aerospace engineer as
well as founder of Aerofex.
This kind of automatic controls may
permit physicians to fly future versions of the vehicle to pay a visit
to rural patients in places without roads, or enable border patrol
officers to go about their duties without pilot training. Everything
comes about involuntarily without the need for electronics, let alone
complicated artificial common sense or flight software. It basically
captures the translations between the two in three axis ( pitch, roll
and yaw), and also triggers the aerodynamic controls needed to counter
the movement which lines the vehicle back up with the pilot,”
Since the pilot’s controlling movements
are reasonable and continuous, it performs out quite very easily to him.
But Aerofex would not plan to instantly develop and promote a manned
version. Rather, the aerospace firm observes the aerial vehicle as an
experiment platform for new unmanned drones — heavy-lift robotic
workhorses that may utilize the similar hover technology to work in
agricultural fields, or effortlessly provide supplies to
search-and-rescue teams in rough terrain. Perhaps the soldiers or
Special Forces may employ such hover drones to carry or deliver heavy
supplies in the constrained spaces between buildings in cities. U.S.
Marines have actually begun testing robotic helicopters to provide
supplies in Afghanistan.
The hovering drones will not fly as
successfully as helicopters due to their shorter rotor blades; however
their completely enclosed rotors have the benefit of a much smaller size
and protection near humans. They are really much less effective than a
helicopter, that has the advantage of larger diameter rotors,” De Roche
explained. “They have exclusive performance advantages, however; since
they have verified flight within trees, near walls and under bridges.
Aerofex possesses presently limited human flight testing to a height of
15 feet in addition to speeds of around 30 mph, however more out of
caution rather than due to any technological limits. Earlier versions of
the hover vehicles can fly about as quickly as helicopters, De Roche
said. Flight testing in California’s Mojave Desert led to the
presentation of a technical paper regarding Aerofex’s achievements at
the Future Vertical Lift Conference in January 2012. The firm ideas to
fly a second version of its vehicle in October, as well as make an
unmanned drone version for flight testing by the end of 2013.
