Monospinner, Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

The Monospinner: a controllable flying vehicle with a single moving part in the ETH Zurich Flying Machine Arena

This video introduces the monospinner, the mechanically simplest controllable flying machine in existence. It has only one moving part (the rotating propeller). The vehicle features no additional actuators or aerodynamic surfaces.

The monospinner cannot hover like a standard multicopter. However, an unconventional equilibrium is found by analyzing the vehicle’s dynamics. For a certain constant angular speed and propeller force, the monospinner is able to remain substantially in one position. Feedback control keeps the vehicle near this equilibrium.

The mechanical design is chosen based on two robustness metrics: the ability to maintain hover under perturbations and the probability of input saturation based on a stochastic model. The resulting vehicle is sufficiently robust to achieve hover after being launched like a Frisbee.

Researchers: Weixuan Zhang, Mark W. Mueller and Raffaello D'Andrea

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