Fail-operational vtol aircraft
AssigneeOverair, Inc.
InventorsAbraham Karem, Ryan Doss, William Martin Waide, Benjamin Tigner
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An aircraft capable of carrying at least 400 pounds of payload, has four rotors systems, each of the rotor systems being independently driven by an electric motor or other torque-producing source. Each of the rotor systems provide sufficient thrust such that the aircraft is capable of controlled vertical takeoff and landing, even if one of the variable pitch rotor is inoperable. An electronic control system is configured to control the rotational speed and pitch of at least one of the rotor systems in each of the first and second rotor pairs. The rotors may be arranged in coaxial stacks or maybe otherwise configured.
Claims20
An aircraft capable of carrying at least 400 pounds of payload, comprising:
- a main body;
- first and second coaxial rotor stacks, each having a first variable pitch rotor system and a second variable pitch rotor system rotatable about a substantially common axis of rotation with each of the rotor systems being independently driven by at least a first torque-producing source;
- an electronic control system configured to control the rotational speed and the blade pitch of at least the first variable pitch rotor system in each of the first and second coaxial rotor stacks;
- wherein each of the first and second variable pitch rotor systems in each of the coaxial rotor stacks provide sufficient thrust such that the aircraft is capable of controlled vertical takeoff and landing, even if up to one of the variable pitch rotor systems of each of the coaxial rotor stacks is inoperable.
An aircraft capable of carrying at least 400 pounds of payload, comprising:
- a main body;
- first and second coaxial rotor stacks, each having a first variable pitch rotor system and a second variable pitch rotor system rotatable about a substantially common axis of rotation with each of the rotor systems being independently driven by at least one torque-producing source;
- an electronic control system configured to control the rotational speed and pitch of at least the first variable pitch rotor system in each of the first and second coaxial rotor stacks;
- at least a first auxiliary rotor system not contained in the first or second coaxial rotor stacks;
- wherein each of the first and second variable pitch rotor systems in each of the coaxial rotor sets and the first auxiliary rotor system together provide sufficient thrust such that the aircraft is capable of controlled vertical takeoff and landing, even if either up to one of the variable pitch rotor systems of each of the coaxial rotor stacks or up to one of the auxiliary rotor systems is inoperable.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.