Increase Impact Resistance of Drones

A motor designed for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to prevent damage when landing on rough terrain. The motor has a hub with a skid surface that contacts the motor casing during propeller strikes on the ground. This reinforcement prevents excessive bending of the rotor shaft, which could damage the motor.

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Removable protection for quadcopter drones that provides propeller protection without adding bulk when not needed. The protection consists of removable lateral bumpers that extend beyond the propeller's rotation area. A deformable arm connects Each bumper to the drone's propulsion units on that side. The arm can flex if the bumper hits an obstacle, reducing shock and preventing damage.

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Composite structure for lightning protection of flying objects like drones. It has overlapping sheet-shaped bodies with conductive layers sandwiched between fiber layers. The overlapping ends connect the conductive layers for lightning protection without gaps. This prevents water ingress and maintains electrical continuity between the conductive layers. It allows overlapping the sheet ends without electrical separation. The composite structure can be used as a surface member of flying objects like drones for lightning protection with overlapping sheets without water ingress.

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Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) design with improved structural rigidity, landing capabilities, and winch operation for package delivery. The UAV has an arch-shaped support structure on top of the chassis that connects the arms. This arch-shaped support structure provides additional rigidity to the UAV. The landing area has a nest with an upper opening larger than the UAV diameter. The UAV centers itself in the nest during landing. The winch has a ridged reel channel that guides the line and prevents tangling. The winch lowering speed is increased initially and then decreased as the load nears the ground. This prevents impact. The UAV can also charge via contacts on the landing pad. The UAV can also have a detection system to locate the landing pad.

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Autonomous damage detection and energy harvesting for structures like unmanned aircraft using multifunctional composites. The composites contain layers that convert mechanical strain into electrical current (mechano-luminescence) and layers that convert light into electrical current (mechano-optoelectronics). When strained, the composite generates electrical signals that can be used for self-powered damage detection. The composites can also harvest energy from vibrations using the strained luminescent layer supplying light to the optoelectronic layer. This allows autonomous damage sensing and energy harvesting in structures without external power sources.

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A lightweight, shapeable multi-layer material with high impact resistance that can be formed into curved or cylindrical shapes. The material has alternating thin layers of glass and resin, with a specific number of lamination structures between 5 and 20,000 in the thickness direction. The thin glass layers provide rigidity and impact resistance, while the resin layers absorb impact. The multi-layer structure can be thermally formed into shapes like curves and cylinders due to the thin layer thicknesses.

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Scalable, hardware-assisted data security that allows decryption of encrypted data without needing dedicated hardware for each node. The system uses a key management technique where each encryption key is split into a public key and a secret key encrypted with a key encryption key (KEK). When encrypting data, a temporary data encryption key (DEK) is generated based on the public key and other inputs. This DEK is sent to the HSM to decrypt the secret key. The HSM then derives the DEK and decrypts the data. This allows decryption without storing all the secret keys in memory.

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Protecting unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from crashing when their positioning systems fail. The method involves determining the UAV's flight state based on its speed before positioning loss, and then adjusting flight protection strategies accordingly. If the UAV was flying slowly before, it enters a low-speed protection mode. If flying fast, it enters a high-speed protection mode. This reduces explosion probability and improves safety after positioning loss compared to the UAV's default flight mode.

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An additive manufactured airframe structure for aerospace applications that enables assembling multiple components into a complete structure without losing mechanical properties. The structure uses separate additively manufactured segments that are linked together. Inside each segment, reinforcement elements like rods or tubes extend through the segment and are received in internal hollow portions. This provides internal reinforcement for the assembled structure without losing strength from external connections. The segments can form wings, fuselages, etc.

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Autonomous aerial vehicle design with features like modular removable rotor blades, a protective structure for image capture devices, a gimbal locking mechanism, and fixed-wing configurations. The removable rotor blades simplify replacement compared to traditional propeller nuts and prevent spontaneous loosening. The protective structure shields the image sensors from impact. The gimbal locking mechanism secures the camera when the vehicle is powered off to prevent damage. Fixed-wing configurations enable high-speed flight and long range compared to rotor-only designs.

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A drone system with physically connected drones for improved efficiency, durability, and swarming capabilities. The drones in this system have multiple propellers enclosed within a central core with arms extending outwards. This allows the propellers to be oriented independently from the drone body. The drones also have mechanisms to connect and disconnect from each other, forming a chain. This allows the connected drones to share thrust and power, improving efficiency. It also provides physical connections between the drones, enabling cooperative maneuvers like formations and swarming. The enclosed propellers also protect them from debris and damage.

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Shock-absorbing bracket for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that reduces vibrations transmitted to the camera during flight. The bracket has a triangular architecture with two horizontal shock-absorbing elements on one side and a vertical shock-absorbing element on the other side. This configuration provides better stability and minimizes front/rear deformation compared to having all shock absorbers on one side. The bracket attaches the camera to the UAV and helps maintain stable image capture in flight by absorbing vibrations.

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An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a protective outer cage and a sensor system that can withstand impacts without damaging the sensors. The UAV has an outer protective cage surrounding the propulsion system. The sensors are mounted on a fixed support outside the cage. The sensors are coupled to the support using a load-limiting mechanism with magnetic connections. This allows the sensors to move slightly under low loads for stability, but prevents damage from high impacts by deforming the spring-loaded mechanism and transferring the force to the cage frame.

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Centrifugal clutch for rotorcraft bearings that allows controlled slippage to prevent overloading and premature failure of the bearing under torsional loads. The clutch has multiple activation elements that sequentially engage and disengage as the bearing rotates, allowing incremental angular displacement without fully locking. This prevents excessive torsional deflection of the bearing elastomeric elements and prevents premature failure. The sequential engagement opens up windows of angular operation as the rotor spins up, allowing controlled slippage instead of overloading the bearing elastomer.

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Composite materials for structures like aerospace components that have improved impact resistance, electrical conductivity, and lightning strike protection compared to traditional composites. The improvement comes from adding fiber-modified interlayers between the fiber layers during composite fabrication. These interlayers contain a nonwoven fabric made of continuous fibers with discontinuous fibers attached to it. This provides a conductive path between the fiber layers for lightning strike dissipation. It also allows impact energy to be deflected laterally rather than propagating through the thickness of the composite. The interlayers are arranged alternately with the fiber layers to make the composite.

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Recent technological advancements in unmanned aerial vehicles have led to their use various military and civilian applications. However, weather conditions, operator faults, electronic or mechanical problems can result vehicle accidents. In the event of an accident, energy-absorbing structures be placed specific regions protect sensitive costly cameras, sensors, cargo from damage, while also preserving vehicle's structural integrity. this study, thin-walled energy absorbers with circular, square, hexagonal, reentrant geometries were proposed, experimental investigation focused on effect increasing number cells crashworthiness performance deformation mechanisms. Lateral compressive load was applied produced by fused deposition modeling technology using advanced polylactic acid filament. Experimental results showed that triple-cell structure demonstrated promising for applications, as it exhibited highest mean crushing force, absorption, absorption values. Thanks unique geometry structure, a gradual collapse mode observed, result, high performance.

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Abstract In the evergrowing world of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, keeping these machines operational can be a costly endeavor. Replacing damaged parts expensive, but promising solution is emerging: remanufacturing considering additive manufacturing. This article explores potential fused deposition modeling (FDM) process for UAV parts, offering sustainable and costeffective approach to drone maintenance, current European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) regulations. For particular case, are remanufactured with PET CF15 composite filament tested loading case in Z direction (vertical direction) order compare behavior original assembly.

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The rapid advancement of 3D printing technologies has greatly assisted drone manufacturing, particularly through the use composite filaments. This paper explores impact fiber-reinforced materials, such as carbon-fiber-infused PLA, PETG, and nylon, on mechanical performance, weight optimization, functionality unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). study highlights how additive manufacturing enables fabrication lightweight yet structurally robust components, enhancing flight endurance, stability, payload capacity. Key advancements in high-speed fused filament (FFF) printing, soluble support embedded electronics integration are examined, demonstrating their role producing highly functional UAV parts. Furthermore, challenges associated with material processing, cost, scalability discussed, along solutions advanced extruder designs hybrid approaches that combine CNC machining. By utilizing filaments innovative techniques, continues to redefine production, enabling prototyping on-demand customization. nylon demonstrated outstanding improvements strength-to-weight structural durability, dimension... Read More

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Electrically powered vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) multirotor aircraft with active flutter suppression using propeller thrust control. The aircraft has sensors to detect flutter of the lifting surfaces like wings, and a control system adjusts propeller thrust to reduce flutter. This active flutter mitigation prevents instability caused by aeroelastic coupling of structural motion and aerodynamic loads. The sensors detect flutter, the control system generates signals to adjust propeller thrust, and the propellers produce modified thrust to counteract flutter motion and stabilize the lifting surfaces.

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This work presents the development of a novel, articulated small uncrewed aerial system (sUAS) tail with coupled twist-pitch motion via ball-and-socket joint. The joint is controlled by five-bar linkage which allows two servos to together in motion, as opposed dedicated traditional elevator and rudder servo control. constructed synthetic feathers slide over one another splay degree freedom third servo. Additive manufacturing leveraged construction all parts wind tunnel model continuous carbon fiber (CCF) reinforcement, increased structural stiffness from 12 GPa for Nylon 1520 CCF reinforcement. Wind test results are presented 5 7 m/s speed body angles of-5 45 angle attack articulation 30 45 respectively. design was capable enabling fine five axis control (e.g., no roll moment control) pitch twist morphing across broad range airspeeds.

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