Drone Propulsion - The LATEST Breakthroughs!

Let's take a look at some of the more impressive drones out there and what they can do!
Sources & Credits:
Crimson Spin
• Crimson Spin: A New Ta...
terp.umd.edu/da-vinci-drones-...
Toroidal Prop
/ 5849275678472712
www.ll.mit.edu/sites/default/...
Cyclorotor
www.cyclotech.at/rotor/
• First Flight of Hybrid...
Jet Propulsion
fusionflight.com/jetquad/
/ @fusionflight
Ionocraft
• The Ionocraft - March ...
/ @kraussemus1
LAZA
• Liquid-amplified zippi...

[@Tech_Planet]

This video is just an overview of different drone propulsion systems which I covered before! Thanks for watching!

[@Mustangblack187]

🖤

[@ravoniesravenshir3926]

Could you take the "Flying Screw" and slot it so it is is like a prop, so cut openings in it, at intervals....

[@crazydrifter13]

I wish you covered zipline's new and very silent new propellers

[@JohnDlugosz]

So what's the drone in the thumbnail? I expected that to be in the video.

[@AndyFromBeaverton]

5:03 Who makes this ornithopter?

[@tomfull6637]

The “bird” towards the end of the video... 50+ years ago I bought a mechanical bird at a local fair. It was made of hollow plastic tubes as the skeleton with thin plastic film for wings and it was driven by a rubber band and it flew just like a dove! It got itself upwards and really high until it stalled. Then it tipped over forwards, beak down, still flapping. During the dive into a slight ascending bow, the air pressure became too high for the kinetic energy in the rubber band so without flapping it glided in a long gradually rising bow until it lost ascending acceleration. Then, at the end of each top of the rising curve it started flapping again. Just like doves fly! It caught a lot of attention I remember. More amazement amongst adults really. I was a young teenager at the time and so often later in life I regretted having tossed it away instead of keeping it for my children.

[@Tech_Planet]

Nice, thanks for sharing!

[@lasercat538]

I copy and pasted your comment into ChatGPT and it said you were likely talking about a "Tim bird" or "rubber band powered ornithopter". Let me know if this is what you were referring to

[@Gyfrctgtdbhf]

Mine was immediately torn to bits by the family dog on its second flight after he heard it and went into bird dog mode,it was that convincing and realistic I suppose.

[@tomfull6637]

@@lasercat538 thx. Maybe it was. But looking at all pics on the web i think mine had more faded colours. Much like my memory 😅 but it could very well be that Tim bird toy. If that was around 1970?!..

[@tomfull6637]

@@Gyfrctgtdbhf haha 😂 😳😰

[@RealStuntPanda]

Fun Fact: DaVinci's works were stolen and copied so often he would purposefully put flaws in his diagrams so when they were stolen (and they would be) they wouldn't work. He also "created" fantastical things he _knew_ wouldn't work so the thieves would just waste their time. He was a pretty fart smeller.

[@fl00fydragon]

True, but he still is the most intelligent and talented human to ever live.

[@dragon67849]

@@fl00fydragon no he's not! He ded!

[@flojotube9323]

He was a pretty fart smeller? Huh?

[@RealStuntPanda]

@@flojotube9323 that's one of the mistakes he purposefully put in his KZbin comments.

[@fl00fydragon]

@@dragon67849 "to ever live" means of all people who have lived up to this point. He was simoutaneously a top tier artist, the father of modern anatomy, made machanically programmable robots at an era where the rest of the people areound him were troglodytes and was an engineer and inventor with inventions anc concepts that are relevant and used even today.

[@jonathanm9436]

I like your format - a sequential, basic analysis of the technologies with their pros and cons, followed by a summary at the end. (Teaching 101, but almost entirely missing from the Tube-o-sphere). Your library looks interesting. Subbed. 😉

[@the_icon_of_sin_94]

What an underrated channel, loads of good content

[@Tech_Planet]

Thanks, I appreciate that!

[@davejones542]

I would replace underrated with not as well known as it should be. subscribed.

[@joeshmoe6930]

I would love to see a manned vehicle in the style of the dragonfly ornithopter thing from the new Dune movie... those are super awesome.

[@S0MBRX]

4:30 getting into that alian saucer tech

[@BuildBreakFix]

When I built my jet drone. I used 1 turbine engine with just 6 pipes for exhaust. Each pipe was 28 inchs long and was what most call arms I guess lol. Gate opens and closes like carb to create direction..... or gain or lower height. Funny enough just used cheap pixhawk to control it with my own firmware

[@pascalfust1035]

Your concept came into my mind as I saw the 4 expensive turbines on that drone. I guess that the current VTOL fighter jets don't carry so many jet engines on board to be able to maneuver in the air

[@BuildBreakFix]

@@pascalfust1035 well I literally have 11 engines 110lb thrust turbines all the same make lol. But here is the thing! 4 on drone is suicide for those engines. These small turbines dont like like up and down left to right. Greatly reduces bearing life. Forward only is ideal for how fast they spin. Other issue is the rotation mass of them causes really bad rotation issues. In a drone was huge problem for me. Ended up using 20mm tubing on left and right. On the right I had 16mm incerts just to restrict some thrust output Just to help with the twisting rill effect. So gyros could make it fly level. Gates where very hard to manage. Ended up using 6 align digital tail servos for 800mm 3d helicopter to control them has to be stupidly fast changes of the gates. Turbine lasted 50 hours in that drone build. Tossed a new one in it and it has been wall hanger ever since lol

[@tristanwegner]

Nice overview, and glad you seem to understand what you present

[@Marienkarpfen]

I could not believe my senses actually finding a nice and informative video. They exist on the web! Good job

[@braindiscovertech]

You folks are killing it with your videos! 🚀 Each video is a tech journey that I'm excited to take. Keep up the fantastic work, and know that your viewers are hungry for more! 📚🎥

[@tridsonline]

👍🏻 Interesting, but what about the V-configured propeller? 2 blades arranged in a V shape with a counter-balance opposite them .. supposedly very quiet

[@ivarins2]

sounds inefficient

[@tridsonline]

@@ivarins2 yes it does, but apparently it isn't in practice.

[@jahmalbaptiste9915]

The company Zipline works on this technology and Mark Rober (KZbin channel) made a video covering this recently (it is indeed pretty quiet as per his video)

[@ivarins2]

@@jahmalbaptiste9915 damn, thanks, that's interesting. I misunderstood what @tridsonline said as a vtail configuration where tails are two rotors 😁

[@AA-Ashley]

Thanks for doing your voiceovers! I'm still loving your videos!

[@ianturpin9180]

Check out the Fairy Rotordyne, a compound gyroplane with tip jets on its rotor tips. Designed for military and civilian use.

[@victoryfirst2878]

This video gave me an education on drone propulsion systems. I am just fascinated with the unique technology which goes into the drone units. Pat yourself on the back fella for sure.

[@zornob1439]

Good primer - thank you.

[@lovelyjubbly1010]

Great Video learned a lot thanks

[@williamstel9330]

Thanks for your presentation most interesting.

[@andrewradford3953]

Put the Da Vinci screws under the drone and eliminate downwash, and create efficient ground hover.

[@drsatan3231]

That will actually just pull the drone downwards

[@Pyroteknikid]

You cant eliminate downwash. Thats how you fly. By displacing air downwards...

[@NekoNinja13]

The cyclorotor gives me similar vibes as a helicopter. Very complex, but it performs its "gimmick" very well

[@CB9IT]

Yeah, but also it can be used for horizontal flight, fast as airplane. And if you add plane wings to cyclorotors - you get plane with vertical takeoff and landings, which doesn't longer reqire any runways.

[@Dystopix]

The company zipline has taken out a patent for a propeller for its drones that looks totally different than a regular propeller and is significantly quieter than regular propellers and looks a bit like a wishbone..

[@risingforce9291]

Zipline already has an amazing unique design for drone propellers.

[@wonderbucket1242]

That Toroidal prop is a game change with 3 times the thrust of a conventional prop!

[@danielpiesto532]

Ornithopters! I love them.

[@MilesBellas]

3:20 the multi material 3D printing technology = revolution in manufacturing

[@victorwitness7414]

If I had the money? This is what I would try. Using a drone: 1) Remove the propellers. 2) Using Mercury inside of a round tube in a figure 8 shape; folded back onto itself. So the fluid would flow in clockwise direction in the upper lever and flowing counterclockwise in the lower level. This would be using the magnetic field of the motors to move the Mercury in only one of the levels. As the other level needs to flow in the opposing direction. It is these opposing fields that break the gravity fields and allows the lift.

[@ianturpin9180]

On trawlers they use Kort nozzles on their propellers. It increases both thrust and efficiency by 30%+ - using less fuel.

[@dipanjanmandal1771]

thanks for the video

[@gregroth4696]

Nice update thanks! Don’t overlook combinations of lift thrust in different vehicles and applications. COMBINATIONS! 2.) don’t forget the bees! Nature has figured out almost all of this already!

[@sgtrock68]

It's odd that I haven't seen that sideways drum rotor with ducting around it. Where the duct inlet is in the center, horizontal, and the outlet thrust is at the bottom. The duct would have to be able to rotate or in some way be able to move the thrust forward or backward around the cylindrical duct. It's an ID fan. In heavy industrial we use them to move air...a lot of air. If the whole thing could rotate a few degrees forward and back that could give you lateral movement or if the 4 "squirrel cages" pushed against each other it seems like the drone(or whatever) would be more stable. Then it would be less dependent on drum speed, or difference in drum speeds, to move laterally or tilt. I'm not a drone mechanic though. The thing would have to rotate to go a different direction I think. Damn, now I want to make one.

[@phrixos2826]

toroidal props are awesome!

[@Macrocompassion]

A centrifugal compressor below a parachute type canopy can replace the common helicopter method of generating lift. This configuration is more efficient in how the kinetic energy of the air is converted into pressure below and even by suction above the canopy.

[@alanpeter2172]

Merci Léonard de Vinci !!!

[@victoryfirst2878]

This is very similar to the drive of a tug boat today. The high performance type use a few of these instead of propellers.

[@de-kat]

There are also Silicon Fans, its some kind of Chip Design thats using nano scale vibrating to move air. first use cases are inside phones and notbooks, to replace the normal fans.

[@yuseffnehru8612]

Hi everyone, thank you for this feeds and comment sections. I guess its almost true you mentioned there is a flaw in the diagram and designs, that wasn't done in purpose, its incomplete diagram. But I just leave it there so incase the designs gets stolen, it wouldn't work.

[@christmassnow3465]

Two types of propellers I would like to watch their testing: 1: The Aerial screw with just one turn, 2: The use of a computer cooling fan as a propeller, because there is no gap between the blades except for the gap caused by the tilt angle.

[@ironclay3939]

OK I'll play your game "Fly like a Bumble Bee at 8 Hertz" well at least hover. I'd suggest a light honey cone platform with Piezo in each cell to focus the already Focused Charge Shape that frequencies between 8 Hertz to about 9.5 Hertz create. To actually visualize what 8 Hertz looks like there's a guy on youtube that does 1 Hertz through to 10 Hertz over water and it's quite clear why Tesla himself Liked 8 Hertz. It appears like a Bulleye with 2 outer rings - Just like an Explosive Shaped Charge. If you have a hexagonal platform made of hexagonal tubes, and mount the Piezo wired in Rings to fire the piezo's in the firing first, the first ring firing second and the outer ring firing third is a continuing sequence at something between 8 and 9.5 pending on the resident of the length of each hex tube you will in fact make a hoverboard. How High and how controllable is going to be related to the strengths you play on the 6 segments. So Play Like a Bumble Bee and remember where you got it from. Me

[@oof_Dad]

Mark Rober's video from Zipline seems to show they have found a pretty good solution to the noise....

[@pinballrobbie]

With the ion propulsion I wonder if the vehicle trailed a long thin wire underneath it could use the different potential voltage to power itself. I saw something like this on YT where the operator was getting shocks from a relatively short wire.

[@devilmaycrybaby]

Great channel keep work

[@st3v3nk3]

I want the cyclorotor to be usable ..:D full bladerunner spinner feel.

[@anthonynarozniak8308]

Variable pitch propellers with curved blades, That's probably the way to go, they're pretty damn efficient....

[@aryacreative]

Amazing,,,

[@edbrackin]

Compared to your Click Bait "Rocket Engine video" this was very well done. Good job.

[@x31omega]

You need to do further research into the ion engine. There is a youtuber who has 3d printed one with high exceleration

[@The-three-eyed-Prophet]

Ion Propulsion has Hughe Potential if we figure out how to properly power it maybe with the help of ttesla coils that provide energy thru the air / atmosphere ...

[@Maybe-So]

Have you looked at the "zipline" drones look for "how do zipline's silent propellers work by The Action Lab" - I'd love to get your view on "silent propellers" in general.

[@arthurcallahan4735]

I like the Ion propulsion. Probably how hover tech will exist in the future for robots/cars.

[@nonstopeccentech]

How far they have come!

[@michaelwhitaker619]

No shout-out to Zipline's quad props? Mark Rober did a review on them and they are funky and quiet.

[@martinwilliams9866]

What about the Magnus effect, either with rotating tubes or spheres? There's also the possibility of using small graphene spheres, reinforced with internal struts with a vacuum inside.

[@grointastic4242]

I saw somewhere humour bagel trying out different types of propulsion

[@bwalker4194]

You need to do some more research. The torroidal propeller you show attached to the marine engines was invented in 2012 by Gregory Sharrow and he now holds 78 patents on it. Although very expensive, it has shown to be superior to conventional props at almost every metric including speed, fuel consumption and vibration.

[@goiterlanternbase]

4:35 The spiderweb of death🤣👍

[@SomeOrdinaryJanitor]

Cyclogyros are some of the coolest pieces of tech ever designed in my opinion. something almost sci-fi about them.

[@klove5765]

What you said at the end of the video is sad but correct, the propeller is going away any time soon

[@johnbode2756]

I saw in another KZbin video by Mark Rober "Amazing Invention- This Drone Will Change Everything" that the Zipline company Patented a propeller design that's in the shape of a wishbone that is extremely quiet. However, I couldn't find it for sale anywhere so I suspect they are keeping for use on only their drones.

[@secularsunshine9036]

Thanks. *Let the Sunshine In...* .

[@nicholasdavidson5683]

Some props need to be given to American Anti Gravity who did ionic lifters for many years using a mains power cable attached to the lifter platform

[@tonytor5346]

Electrogravitics using fast conter-rotator ferromercuric mixture works well

[@joechan3388]

Whatever the shape of the propeller, as long the profile of the blade meets the Bernoulli's principle, the propeller will generate lift to lift or propel force.

[@TeddyLeppard]

I urge you to look into the Jetoptera flying craft, which is (obviously) a jet motor based vehicle. I understand it is currently undergoing testing with the military.

[@Ponlets]

honestly if you could put on actuators for the ion drones ontop of making them large enough they can likely be the next step for flight in general but ye

[@martymissile]

Until someone can review the Zipline propeller revealed in Mark Rober’s last video, nothing else matters. That thing is revolutionary and there’s essentially no other info out there about it.

[@williamgibble8361]

Flying bird rc application is beautiful 😍

[@waynedieckmann9840]

The screws were upside down and the thread needs to be stretched. A curtain around the screws could help funnel thrust. Just using these ideas should give you 3xthrust

[@CC-iq2pe]

Torroidal ship propellers add substantial improvements over regular propellers. I would assume that similar gains will impact flying craft as well.

[@ABaumstumpf]

"add substantial improvements over regular propellers" Aside from then not being new but well known and in use in certain industries for decades... And do you happen to know which they are? Hint: it is not power nor efficiency.

[@automatonorca736]

And just like that Pod Racing was born.

[@GRELEDI]

Buen compendio de propulsores dron.

[@edwardsodke5860]

The electrogravitics device is usually used in the front edge if a wing. Could it go on front edge of a propeller?

[@bergfpv6486]

5:24 Seems to me you'd be burning through a million cycles in just a few days at best, when you consider the wing beats/second a small flying craft requires. The average hummingbird has a wing beat of around 53 hertz. At that rate, you'll have about 48 hours of use. Now, if you use that in craft with much lower wing beat speeds, it's a little better.

[@jamesdenton3692]

Do any of these new prop designs have any applications for a two stage snow blower ?

[@1servingtruthfreedomplease]

Ionic water propulsion is quite interesting; salt water is best for good propulsion, but continuous feed of hydrogen being created by the separation of h2o is what in turn can be captured and used in a fuel cell to create energy for recharging the batteries.

[@jslevenson101]

A nuclear battery that was safe and reliable to use could be used in those ion thruster vehicles because it would be a good weight to power ratio.

[@joegregoire8107]

The ARV Fluxliner. Mark McCandlish. Air is not the only medium that we are immersed in. Propellers turn air. If you want to know how to do it better and faster you need to know what that other medium is .

[@marcuslenz9825]

Zipline uses an interesting propellor design which is significantly quieter and equally efficient

[@TeddyLeppard]

The cyclorotor is essentially the impeller used on the original Spinner from Blade Runner.

[@Waynesification]

You missed a few innovations, on your other videos, and that chanel that has many bladed 350mph+ drone designs. That's crazy stuff. Moving over to vtl and pv aircraft, there is one based on the Dyson fan technology. There is a single prop alternative to private corporate jets, with linear design. There is a drone for deliveries that has a delivery box with 400 feet cable to drop the parcel on a dinner plate sized area. It's propeller system is very quiet and likely very efficient. It on the same channel as the African drone blood delivery service that has launcher and dual arm capture. 500,000 deliveries in 6 years to hospital from the central base. I think both are the same guy who designed them. Have a great day.

[@josephwisniewski3673]

The company is Zipline, founded by Keller Rinaudo Cliffton. I don’t know if they have their own KZbin channel, but Mark Rober's video on them is worth a watch.

[@tomc.5704]

Kind of curious, why would you say that in the future it is very likely that micro aerial vehicles will have some different type of setup? It's certainly possible to generate lift with other designs and methods, but is there anything more power efficient or weight efficient?

[@rickrouse7865]

the toroidal propeller shows more promise then was advertised here it has higher performance with less noise by a significant margin then standard propellers. the fact that it produces less noise contributes to its gains because instead of energy into making noise, it's more energy into thrust. with advancements in 3d printing the prices should keep dropping. it has a promising future.

[@stuartgraca]

Can the flipper idea be used to produce compressed air as the propulsion

[@Q5Grafx]

look into T. Townshend Brown and his studies of dielectric stress, in the 1950s he was able to make a disk (capacitor) fly at hundreds of miles per hour. though his experiments were tethered. the tethering was due to high voltage needs to achieve the dielectric stress needed for flight. but it boiled down to this. pump enough electricity into a capacitor and you can achieve flight with no moving parts.

[@muridmili8137]

Leonardo Da Vinci is real genius and his' inventions are very amazing.

[@TheMichaelBeck]

LD also invented the tank. Crazy how smart he was.

[@IcannaHelp]

Hey there's that one crew that's making the world's largest 3D printed anything and it's not a jet but a rocket!

[@Filcayra72]

What about those drones that mark rover did a video on? Those were pretty quiet.

[@streamofconsciousness5826]

It looks like that new prop with no tips draws air from a larger area if not as much, might be useful for a low density atmosphere like Mars. So ION works, wow. And flapping wings seems like it will be a rough ride. Get them in sync like a millipedes legs and it might not be too bad. That would be better as submarine propulsion, A million cycles, how long would that be, a few days running steady, you could and would probably have to slow them down in the water but that would be interesting. I wonder if it would make less noise than a Prop to have 1000's of oars protruding a few feet out side the subs Hull pulling it through the water.

[@ProfessorJayTee]

It would be interesting to see if a centrifugal "squirrel-cage" fan would work in a lifting capacity. But perhaps it's too inefficient, I don't know.

[@hermanshim8948]

Try using an air intake plenum with desiccant..

[@1TakoyakiStore]

I thought the big reason why we have so few jet propulsion-based vertical takeoff vehicles is because of how rough the exhaust is on a runway or flat area to land? It could be replaced with turboprops and it would be the best of both conventional rotors and the fuel efficiency of a jet engine. Jet engines themselves are actually fairly easy to build but unless you utilize more expensive materials your engine won't be able to practically last very many cycles. If titanium ever becomes as cheap as aluminum then it would be a game changer as there isn't any efficient way of getting titanium out of the abundant titanium dioxide and you can 3D print with it. I believe there's a way through a lengthy series of chemical treatments and reactions to get the titanium to let go of its oxygen but its cost prohibitive and toxic.

[@mickmuzzmkmz1628]

For those who want to look at the ionic drone more, the name is Ethan Krauss. It sounded like it was pronounced "Cross" in the video, but as I found out, Ethan Cross has nothing to do with ionic drones!😆

[@h734802]

7:02 Again the same common mistake and misunderstanding. Those ions (not plasma) don't need to collide anything. It is just the matter of force and counter force: if you push an ion away you will be pushed to the opposit direction by the impulse (I=mv).

[@phillip6083]

I had an idea for a craft(possible heavy lifter like an air crane) that uses a number of different lift effects. Its a large neutral buoyant hydrogen filled lifting body with variable geometry tech and cyclorotor powered. It would be hydrogen feul cell powered. Imagine a massive manta ray shaped craft with wings that change shape to maximize lift potential, hydrogen gass bags make it light but not lighter than air.cyclorotors under the main body would give the main thrust and maneuverability.

[@CB9IT]

Циклические воздушные колёса могут стать новым словом в авиации, так как могут позволить летать на больших скоростях горизонтально, как самолёты, только используя поворот направленности роторов. Это позволит уменьшить затраты энергии на горизонтальное перемещение относительно горизонта, так как сопротивление корпуса потокам воздуха можно снизить именно с целью дальних полётов. А если добавить в конструкцию крылья, то это получится самолёт с вертикальным взлётом и посадкой на горизонтальные и наклонные плоскости.

[@Balshazar]

Now add torsion drives to the drones and the propulsion system will be enhanced. Skunkworks already proved the concept.

[@pinballrobbie]

I heard the toroidal prop lessens cavitation wear in water.

[@jadensilveira2188]

Yooo I think we found how the people in Dune got the dragonfly ornithopter wings to work it was with those LAZA motors Damn, it be pretty cool if somebody can get those motors to power a craft like a dargon fly or a bee or something with a fast wingbeat

[@VelvetPimpson]

I wonder if ion propulsion is how the TR-3B black manta jet works

[@bestonehere2059]

I was hoping u would do one of the technologies as one of Ziplines city drones i here those are super quiet maybe in another video