Please accept our Best Wishes for Mother and Child.
0
That innocent looking maple seed gently floating down to Earth could be a new camera-equipped monocopter developed by scientists from the University of Maryland.
Small enough to fit in your hand and cheap enough for mass production, the monocopter could autonomously explore unstable buildings or hover over a battlefield for days at a time.
"Maple seeds or samara fruit require no power and fall to the ground in the same fashion every time," said Evan Ulrich, a graduate student at the University of Maryland building the new monocopters. "It's extremely efficient."
"Our original idea was to drop them out of an airplane, steer them to a particular place or person, and equip them with a camera or other sensor," said Ulrich.
Since he started designing monocopters in 2005 for his graduate work, Ulrich has built hundreds of monocopter variations. Some weigh less than 10 grams and have a wingspan of seven centimeters (2.8 inches). The largest weigh several times more and have a wingspan of 50 centimeters (19.7 inches).
Each monocopter has a similar shape: a single wing, usually carbon fiber, attached at a right angle to a propeller on one side and an electronics package on the other.
Some monocopter wings can change their angle and alter their speed, but that's far less complicated than trying to design a machine based on the various actuators and power supply needed to power a similarly sized, insect-inspired microflyer.
Each piece can be changed depending on the needs of the designer -- a larger battery for longer flight or a wing optimized for better control, for example. Later versions of the monocopter can be launched from the ground or even out of a person's hand.
Source
