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Maple Seeds Inspire New Flying Machine
Monocopter takes off from the ground and hovers
Updated: Tuesday, 20 Oct 2009, 6:50 PM EDT
Published : Tuesday, 20 Oct 2009, 4:00 PM EDT
BY JOHN HENREHAN/myfoxdc
COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Clark School Aerospace Engineering students solve 60-year-old design dilemma by mimicking Maple tree seeds.
Kids call 'em "helicopters" -- maple seeds that rotate as they fall to the ground. They're actually monocopters because they have one blade. And, for 60 years, they've been an engineering dilemma.
The maple seed, "...for it's size and shape, it has the optimal aerodynamic descent," according to the Dean of the Engineering School at the University of Maryland at College Park, Dr. Darryll Pines. But making successful controlled flight from that design has proven elusive. Until now.
Graduate student Evan Ulrich is the primary inventor of a new flying machine modeled after the maple tree seed. It works. Ulrich demonstrated several of his devices to a gaggle of reporters on an engineering plaza in College Park, today.
Ulrich placed the awkward looking device on the ground, walked back to his remote radio controller, and began turning controls. The machine vibrated. Its single propeller started turning, and, woosh, the gizmo was up in the air and flying.
The Army, which helped fund the research, is very interested. Ulrich has already successfully attached a small TV camera and transmitter on his monocopter. He says the Army has access to much smaller and lighter cameras.
Law enforcement agencies could also use the device to fly into a building, say, during a hostage siege. Ulrich has successfully flown models that are only three inches long.
Ulrich, who will earn his doctorate in May, says the prototypes cost about $500 each. But the flying monocopter might turn into a $100 toy with enough mass production. How does it feel to fly it? "It's a blast," says inventor Ulrich.
Two patent applications have been filed, and Ulrich envisions the toy version of this monocopter being in production within months.
From the A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland
Maple tree seeds (or samara fruit) and the spiraling pattern in which they glide to the ground have delighted children for ages and perplexed engineers for decades. Now aerospace engineering graduate students at the University of Maryland’s Clark School of Engineering have learned how to apply the seeds’ unique design to devices that can hover and perform surveillance in defense and emergency situations.
In the 1950s, researchers first tried to create an unmanned aerial vehicle that could mimic a maple seed's spiraling fall. Ever since, their attempts have been foiled by instability, resulting in a lack of control over the tiny (less than one meter) vehicles, which were easily knocked off course by wind. As recently as June 2009, this was considered as an open challenge for engineers.
The Clark School students have solved the steering problem and provided a solution that allows the device to take off from the ground and hover, as well as perform controlled flight after its initial fall to the ground after being deployed from an aircraft. The device can also begin to hover during its initial descent, or after being launched by hand.
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