15 gramm nano-copter: PD-100 Black Hornet
The Norwegian company Prox Dynamics just released videos of their PD-100 Black Hornet, a 15 gramm fixed-pitch helicopter with a direct drive brushless main motor. According to Prox Dynamics, the PD-100 is the first Unmaned Aircraft System (UAS) to be developed.
The copter comes in a box of three (always better to have more than one heli!).
Just too bad that this machine will probably never be available for the regular guy.
RTF box - millitary style.
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The box.
The PD-100 has a rotorspan of 100mm. With a weight of 15g it is about as lightweight as a PicooZ.
• Rotor Span 100 mm, Mass 15 gr including Payload
• Maximum Speed 10 m/s, Endurance up to 30 minutes
• Digital Data Link, Range 1000 m Line-of-Sight
• GPS Navigation or Visual Navigation through Video
• Autopilot with Autonomous and Directed Modes
• Hover & Stare, Automatic Search Patterns, Preplanned Route
Videos:
Interestingly the PD-100 tailrotor looks very similar to the PicooZ tailrotor.
Direct drive brushless mainmotor - and a tail rotor that looks very much like the PicooZ's?
The PD-100 has a direct-drive brushless main motor which can be seen in the picture above. Eliminating the gear/pinion components from the design makes it very low in noise i suppose. Also the weight of the BL main motor is placed directly in the desired center of gravity.
Really a palm-size design. The rotor looks flybar-less. Do I see a PicooZ tail?
Looking at the picture above there seems to be no mechanical stabilizing mechanism like a flybar in the main rotor design. So this flybar-less setups seems to be stabilized by electronics. Also in the picture the swashplate can be seen – it has relatively large diameter: This makes controll inputs extremly precise (high resolution) – just what is needed for a flybar-less design at this scale.
One of the servos can be seen in the back of the heli, near the tailboom – looking like linear servos used on the Spektrum AR6400 or the 5-1 board of Walkera 4#3Q and Lama2.
With camera. Palm-Size FPV - PD-100 C Prototype
Also interesting are the other, earlier designs of Prox Dynamics’ Peter Murren which can be seen on his website http://www.proxflyer.com/.
Videos from 2008:
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