I was just wondering, does anyone know how it steers? It has two counterrotating blades (I have no idea how they manage to make them counterrotate on a single rod nor do I know how they manage to keep it so that some small imbalance doesn't cause the overall vehicle to spin) but I don't see another control surfaces. I think it's too light to have a heavy gyroscope. Does it have some sort of gimbal at the base of the rotors to allow them to tilt? Is there some sort of internal mass (the batteries?) that
It's quite simple, it's two concentric shafts, one inside the other. As for steering, I haven't looked at the Mars copter, but helicopters have a device called a swashplate that lets you change the pitch of the blades selectively as the blades spin around 360 degrees. This gets you selective thrust in any direction.
An extreme example of a swashplate would be in 3D helicopter flying.
It's got a swashplate. They mention the health of the swashplate servos in the webcast.
I'm sure it also has tiny solid state/MEMS gyros of some sort, like terrestrial n-copter drones.
Does anyone know how it steers? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was just wondering, does anyone know how it steers? It has two counterrotating blades (I have no idea how they manage to make them counterrotate on a single rod nor do I know how they manage to keep it so that some small imbalance doesn't cause the overall vehicle to spin) but I don't see another control surfaces. I think it's too light to have a heavy gyroscope. Does it have some sort of gimbal at the base of the rotors to allow them to tilt? Is there some sort of internal mass (the batteries?) that
Re: (Score:5, Informative)
It's quite simple, it's two concentric shafts, one inside the other. As for steering, I haven't looked at the Mars copter, but helicopters have a device called a swashplate that lets you change the pitch of the blades selectively as the blades spin around 360 degrees. This gets you selective thrust in any direction.
An extreme example of a swashplate would be in 3D helicopter flying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
This is where the swashplate has extreme throws compared to a full-size one...
The Kamov Ka-50
Re: Does anyone know how it steers? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Does anyone know how it steers? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I hope they disabled the GPS module.
Re: Does anyone know how it steers? (Score:2)
Yeah it may fly back to Earth and land on someones head. That may make NASA look bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah it may fly back to Earth and land on someones head. That may make NASA look bad.
If NASA could manage that it would make them look great. Elon Musk, eat your heart out.