Cyclopter Micro Air Vehicle Developed By Team At University Of Maryland

Dr. Moble Benedict, Prof. Inderjit Chopra and their team at the University of Maryland made their project called 'Cyclocopter or Cyclogyro' have it's first untethered flight recently. Since its inception in the early 20th century, They are the first to have conducted an experimental study on the concept of building alternatives to conventional helicopters to revolutionize the vertical flight. Their work included both performance and flow-field (Particle Image Velocimetry) studies. This helped in formulating a set of design principles for an efficient cyclorotor which eventually led to the development of the first flying cyclocopter in the history.

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A Cyclopter is a cycloidal rotor system made of carbon fiber and titanium. It is similar to a helicopter because it creates lift through rapidly moving airfoils, but the Cyclocopter's airfoils rotate around a horizontal axis. They change their pitch continually so as to generate thrust in one single direction. This has been applied to both a quad cyclocopter and a twin cyclocopter and have got a successful hover. (Check the video below.)

The advantage of using a Cyclocopter or Cyclogyro instead of traditional helicopters is that they are cited to be more efficient i.e. they generate more thrust for a given amount of power & the thrust can be vectored very rapidly. Viewing the flip side, the system is quite complex & the weight of the motors may outweigh the efficiency achieved.



For more details about this project, check:  https://terpconnect.umd.edu/~moble