Unmanned flight vehicle including counter rotating rotors positioned within a toroidal shroud and operable to provide all required vehicle flight controls
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A flight vehicle comprising:
- a. a toroidal fuselage concentric about an axis,b. two counter-rotating bladed rotors located within said toroidal fuselage,c. means to position said rotors for rotation about an axis of rotation which is coincident with the fuselage axis, andd. means to totally control the motions of said vehicle in lift, pitch, roll and yaw in both hover and forward flight comprising;
1) means for applying both collective and cyclic pitch changes to the blades of said rotors so that the moments created by the rotors by the application of pitch change to the rotor blades cooperate with the moments created by airflow through said toroid fuselage to produce the desired lift, pitch, yaw and roll control of the flight vehicle, said moments created by the airflow through said toroidal fuselage being controllable as a function of rotor cyclic pitch.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An unmanned flight vehicle wherein two counter-rotating rotors are positioned within a toroidal fuselage and in which rotor pitch solely is utilized to generate all required lift, pitch, roll, yaw and vibration and stress control for the vehicle.
121 Citations
17 Claims
-
1. A flight vehicle comprising:
-
a. a toroidal fuselage concentric about an axis, b. two counter-rotating bladed rotors located within said toroidal fuselage, c. means to position said rotors for rotation about an axis of rotation which is coincident with the fuselage axis, and d. means to totally control the motions of said vehicle in lift, pitch, roll and yaw in both hover and forward flight comprising; 1) means for applying both collective and cyclic pitch changes to the blades of said rotors so that the moments created by the rotors by the application of pitch change to the rotor blades cooperate with the moments created by airflow through said toroid fuselage to produce the desired lift, pitch, yaw and roll control of the flight vehicle, said moments created by the airflow through said toroidal fuselage being controllable as a function of rotor cyclic pitch. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
-
Specification