Comment by algoshift | Hacker News Reader

Comment by algoshift | Hacker News Reader

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Not that impressive if you are familiar with the technology.

As someone mentioned, this is, at its simplest, an RC helicopter inside a sphere.

RC helicopters have had off-the-shelf 3 axis gyros and 3 axis accelerometers available for quite some time. There are probably well over a dozen such systems in the market today.

As far as cost is concerned, the numbers are on par with what was mentioned. My smallest helicopter system probably runs about $2,000 or so ready to fly. This includes carbon fiber rotors, skeleton, 3-axis stabilization system, radio, etc.

If you dared get close to an RC heli with a stabilization system and push it you'd see exactly what you saw in this video: The heli would recover to its prior attitude. In real life wind gusts do this all the time.

No doubt they are writing additional code to take advantage of the spherical platform.

If you are interested in seeing what a modern high-performance RC heli can do today check out this seven year old kid flying one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHJs1gBLiuQ

Here's another example of what these machines can do today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgbXcb1P6eU

Yes, they are dangerous. Power systems can exceed 10KW on the high performance helis.

Here's one of the many commercially available 3-axis flight stabilization systems in the market:

http://www.digitalflybar.com/products/sk720.html

Time to take apart one of the helis and build a sphere around it!

The difference here is not so much that it hovers and stabilises position, but that it has two modes of flying: when it hovers, it works like a helicopter (the propeller provides support), but when it goes forward, it works like a plane (the wings provide support while the propeller only provides forward movement).

In addition to the two flying modes it can roll on the ground to get to hard to reach places. I've not seen a helicopter do that before.

I honestly have to wonder if that was inspired by a certain Japanese video game series in which the protagonist does exactly the same thing.

OK, build a sphere around the $200 VTOL plane I linked to above and you have that too.

making that sphere not interfere with airflow from the rotors is not trivial.

Also nothing new. You can buy one right now for about $200. Here's one example: http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=EFL...

Here's a video: http://www.horizonhobby.com/ProdInfo/Files/EFLU4780.wmv

So what is different from the flying orb (other than the chassis)? avionics software? Why $200 vs $1400?

This made me think of an experimental aircraft design I saw once. It uses a huge ducted propeller to be able to hover while at the same time being able to fly forward, with the wings (and duct) generating lift as in a traditional airplane. The problem is that the cockpit stays fixed, so hovering would be very disorienting for the pilot.

http://www.esotec.org/hbird/index.html

This is pretty much how the new F-35B (STOVL variant of the Joint Strike Fighter) works. There's a ducted fan in the middle of the plane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35C#F-35B

If I wanted to build one, what off-the-shelf components would I use (electronics and controller especially)? What pieces of hardware and software would I have to implement?

Bottom line: this is cool, how would I build one in my garage with as little wheel-reinvention as possible?

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