Combustion Engined Quadcopter

A German company airstier is building a quadcopter powered by a combustion engine, rather than batteries. The firm has launched a Kickstarter bid for yeair, a quadcopter driven by combustion engines that has a top speed of 100 km/h (62 mph), which can stay airborne for up to 60 minutes and carry up to 5kg in weight.

These capabilities could support new uses for drones, according to airstier: allowing the UAV to film scenes using professional cameras, to keep pace with a fast-moving cars or animals, to film sporting events for longer periods and transport goods over further distances.

Key Features:

• 60 MIN MAX AIRTIME – yeair! delivers up to one hour of air time
• UP TO 5 KG PAYLOAD – yeair! can carry a payload up to 5 kg, enough to carry e.g. cinema quality camera system.
• UP TO 100 KM/H TOP SPEED – yeair! gives you up to 100 km/h of speed. More than enough to follow a driving car
• AFFORDABLE: € 1399 – goal: high technology for everybody
• OPEN SOURCE – By reaching € 150.000 (Stretchgoal), yeair! is totally open for great developer ideas. The extra servoslot is free programmable with the open source interface for the I/O Coding within the app.

Users will be able to plot routes for the yeair! drone on a map and download data from the flight using a tablet app – with the drone able to travel a maximum of 34 miles. Navigation is made possible using a GPS unit and the drone’s onboard wifi allows it to connect to a tablet app at a range of 100 metres.

While combustion-powered drones can be more difficult to control as effectively as battery-powered UAVs, airstier claims to have tackled this limitation by developing a “electrically powered alternate/hub shaft”. This shaft is “coupled to the combustor to relate accelerations and delay values”, which the firm says enables its flight to be as stable as an all-electric drone.

The additional power of the combustion engines should also let the yeair! drone operate in stronger winds than is possible using consumer drones today. yeair!’s dual engines also allow for one engine to take over and keep the craft airborne in the event of engine failure.

Source: Press Release