Quadcopter mounted within Tyvek kite?

[sippyCUP]

Hey guys, this may sound a bit kooky but hear me out. My son was set on towing a kite with a quadcopter... why I'm not sure, but I told him I'd work on it. One potential issue there is the towline getting tangled in the rotors. We are amatuer quadcopter pilots, we have a few inexpensive models that we just play with.

His next thought was to mount a kite to the drone itself, cutting out holes for the rotors and try to adhere the kite material to the body as best we could. I understand this would undoubtably have performance impacts... basically he wants to tether this device to the ground during a windy day and watch it fly as a kite, but also be able to fly it around a little bit as he pleases. We might even be able to design a "tether release" controlled by RC for when he's ready to fly it under power.

I'm willing to put in some effort as long as it isn't totally out to lunch from a control and aerodynamic perspective. It doesn't need to be a super high performance or long battery life drone - IE inefficiency is okay. I've seen asymmetrical drones before, so that is encouraging. What sorts of things should I be thinking about here? Can this be attempted with an off-the-shelf drone? I have never built a quadcopter before but I do have an engineering background so I'd be willing to do a little learning and trial and error.

I ran across this thread: http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/nonuniform-geometry-of-a

in which they discuss a non-symmetrical quadcopter design. They mention a mixtertable, so I might need to play with this a bit, especially if strange forces/torques are applied by the kite portion.

Thanks,
Eric

 

[GJH105775]

Hey guys, this may sound a bit kooky but hear me out. My son was set on towing a kite with a quadcopter... why I'm not sure, but I told him I'd work on it. One potential issue there is the towline getting tangled in the rotors. We are amatuer quadcopter pilots, we have a few inexpensive models that we just play with.

His next thought was to mount a kite to the drone itself, cutting out holes for the rotors and try to adhere the kite material to the body as best we could. I understand this would undoubtably have performance impacts... basically he wants to tether this device to the ground during a windy day and watch it fly as a kite, but also be able to fly it around a little bit as he pleases. We might even be able to design a "tether release" controlled by RC for when he's ready to fly it under power.

I'm willing to put in some effort as long as it isn't totally out to lunch from a control and aerodynamic perspective. It doesn't need to be a super high performance or long battery life drone - IE inefficiency is okay. I've seen asymmetrical drones before, so that is encouraging. What sorts of things should I be thinking about here? Can this be attempted with an off-the-shelf drone? I have never built a quadcopter before but I do have an engineering background so I'd be willing to do a little learning and trial and error.

I ran across this thread: http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/nonuniform-geometry-of-a

in which they discuss a non-symmetrical quadcopter design. They mention a mixtertable, so I might need to play with this a bit, especially if strange forces/torques are applied by the kite portion.

Thanks,
Eric

Certainly an interesting project. You could conceivably do it, but surprisingly the tether will probably provide the most trouble due to the way it will bounce and tug. If you can get the kite to where it supports most of the weight of the quad you might try a stretched out Plus configuration with asymmetrical PID settings between the roll and Pitch axis. I'd even experiment with something like air mode. Tilting motors could also be a benefit, or perhaps a kite that rotated relative to the quadcopter along the roll or pitch axis, perhaps a cutout in the middle and a rod into the side of the quad.


Sounds possible. WHat type of work are you willing to put into it, how much are you willing to spend, and what do you have to work with along the lines of kites and quads?

 

[sippyCUP]

Certainly an interesting project. You could conceivably do it, but surprisingly the tether will probably provide the most trouble due to the way it will bounce and tug. If you can get the kite to where it supports most of the weight of the quad you might try a stretched out Plus configuration with asymmetrical PID settings between the roll and Pitch axis. I'd even experiment with something like air mode. Tilting motors could also be a benefit, or perhaps a kite that rotated relative to the quadcopter along the roll or pitch axis, perhaps a cutout in the middle and a rod into the side of the quad.


Sounds possible. WHat type of work are you willing to put into it, how much are you willing to spend, and what do you have to work with along the lines of kites and quads?

I'm willing to put a decent bit of time and money into, but nothing exorbitant (not gonna mortage the house!). I'd say if we budget this as part of birthday/Christmas splurges, we can do a few thousand dollars, and if nothing else we'll have the kites and quadcopters left over if the project doesn't pan out.

When you say stretched out plus, do you mean wider (longer in the transverse direction)?

What would you recommend I start reading, and do any ready-made quadcopter platforms come to mind that might be suited to this project?

Thank you,
Eric