This is Part 3 in the Series ‘Diary of a Flying Car Engineer’ This articles discusses the physics behind Flights. Physics The Rotors act as wings. They generate thrust by rotating at Fast speeds, which pulls the air downwards and keeps the quad in the air. The Thrust cancels out the acting weight and the quad hovers. A directional Thrust causes the quad to move in that direction. Or a decrease in Thrust overall causes the to lose height. Drone Setup: The setups for Flying is simple: Two adjacent motors spin in the opposite direction. Two opposite motors spin in the same direction. A,C spin (From our point of view) Clockwise B,D Spin Counter-Clockwise Why? Physics says to be in stability the net forces acting on a body should be zero. So if all the rotors were to spin in the same direction, it would result in a net Torque causing the complete Quad to rotate. Source: Wikipedia Attitude Source: Video The attitude is defined with analogy from the Naval World. We will use these terms to define the motions of our drone. Roll: Moving to left or Right with respect to the Front. Pitch: Moving Forward or Backwards. Yaw: Rotation about the centre. Taking Off Source: Video To Rise above the ground, you need a net upward Force. The Motors generate Thrust that is greater than the Weight, making the quad rise upwards. Hover Source: Video Hovering in Air is simple. Motors generate Thrust. The Thrust should equal the weight of the System. The two forces cancel and our drone Hovers. Roll Source: Video To Roll towards the Left (Our Left), the Thrust is increased on the Motors on the Right. We also decrease the Thrust on the motors on the Left. Why? To keep the Net zero and allowing an Leftward Net Force. Torque To Roll Rightwards (Our Right) Source: Video Pitch To Pitch Forwards (Towards us) The Power to the motors rear motors is increased. This creates a net forward force which causes the Drone’s nose to Pitch Downward. We also decrease the power to the two front motors to keep the angular momentum conserved. To Pitch Away from us Yaw Source: Video To Yaw Clockwise. We increase the Thrust on the Anti-Clockwise moving Motors. Decrease the Thrust on Clockwise Rotating Motors. Why?To keep the Net upward/downward force zero. There is a resulting Anti-Clockwise Torque. The Quad rotates Clockwise to conserve the Angular Momentum. If you found this article interesting and would like to stay in touch, you can find me on Twitter here . Subscribe to my Newsletter for more on Self Driving Cars, Deep learning, Computer Vision and now: Flying Cars.
