I’m trying to design a larger Quadrotor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrotor) craft that runs off of a single gas engine. Does anyone know anything about how quadrotors stabilize and how I would be able to achieve the same effects using a single gas engine for all 4 rotors? I assume it would have to be done through collective pitch adjustments? Is this even possible?

 

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

 

Brad

After looking at the wikipedia article, it looks like they stabilize by varying the speed of the individual rotors. The benefit over a helicopter is that you don't need to vary the pitch or the collective.

 

To use just one engine, I would assume you would need 4 infinitely variable speed transmissions, one per rotor, to enable vehicle control.

 

How large of a vehicle are you thinking of here? The one referenced in the article is C130 sized...

a continuously variable transmission is going to be a little bulky for all but the biggest quadrotors.

 

it wouldn't take much to tilt each rotor set around it's drive shaft to achieve lateral motion, it would also simplify gearing and directional control.

 

collective pitch adjustments would work, they'd also make the control similar to a variable speed quadrotor.