Science fiction inspired: 3D printing spherical aircraft

A group of high-tech aircraft enthusiasts and sci-fi fans who are passionate about 3D printing technology combine their technology to design and build a spherical drone-style aircraft to participate in the local aircraft design competition. One of the main requirements of competition is to build an "unconventional" aircraft. This week, they shared their design process, suppliers, bill of materials, and stl files on the Instructable website.

As a design team they claim to be "hardcore fans of many sci-fi shows", they are inspired by some science fiction novels, they are particularly keen on Prometheus' mapping drones and the door called "Gina" Cosmic Stargate. The spherical camera aircraft, as well as the IT-O interrogator robot on Star Wars. And they are not limited to these three sources, their inspiration to make their final design prototype into a sphere.

The shape of the spherical aircraft was established and the research team made further efforts to study the latest technologies of the drone. Their favorite examples are the spherical aircraft used by the Japanese Ministry of Defense and the intelligent system (LIS) called the "Intelligence System (LIS) of the Lausanne Federal Institute of Technology (Europe)), the world's first anti-collision drone design. They also studied a variety of different coaxial counters that can rotate the rotor from the outside to remotely control the toy from outside the cage. The team thought the latter was problematic and airflow was a problem, so they set out to try to eliminate it:

“We decided to use a coaxial counter to rotate the rotor as our propulsion. This setup allows us to control the deflection of the aircraft by adjusting the differential rotational speed of the propeller.”

Regarding the intake section, they designed a ducted propeller system. Regarding the intake air at the bottom, they explained that the airflow was divided into four spheres that flow directly from the conduit output to one side. As for the propulsion system, they came up with a very clever way: the propulsion system was mounted under a spherical cage that was fitted with an x-y conversion platform designed to support and hold the battery, which is the most weight on the aircraft. The part. In this way, the center of gravity of the aircraft turned to a single direction. If the center of gravity of the aircraft changes, the entire aircraft will be adjusted and pushed directly in the opposite direction. You will also see this flight mode in other examples, such as hang gliders and small single helicopters.

Many components of a spherical aircraft are 3D printed with ABS material, including intake ducts, airflow sorting devices, and output ducts. The rest was made from a layer of foamed paper that was laser-cut, although the team was not so happy with the results because it was not as accurate as they expected. They used a variety of methods to assemble these parts together, from screws to nuts, and even with a cable to wrap the ball around.

You can see the final results of their page as well as the materials and supplies and lists. With the stl file, you can print or upload an online service center such as 3D at home with your own 3D printer. We hope to see the action of a video spherical aircraft to find out if it was successfully submitted!

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