This is a concept given by Jameson and his colleagues at Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Laboratories (ATL) in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The team wants to design a Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) based on the shape of a maple seed that would form a one-bladed helicopter.
The best part of the design is that it is compact and has minimum number of moving parts. The team has received a funding of $1.7 million from DARPA that looks the prototype as a useful surveillance device that could be carried out by the soldiers to provide them with critical information related to those places those are hard to reach for them.
It’s a single blade two inches long, with a tiny rocket thruster at its tip, which sets the blade spinning like a pinwheel at 15,000 rpm to produce lift. The whole device will just weigh about a third of an ounce with battery, sensors, navigation and communication equipment on it.
The biggest problem that the researchers are finding to complete the project is maintaining the small size of the device, as until now there is no rocket thruster appropriate for this device. The team is working hard and hopes to complete the project as soon as possible. If completed successfully the device will have a top speed of 33 feet per second, and the nono-copter would be able to hover in place for at least a minute. It could then release a payload and return to the operator.
Via: airspacemag
