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Concept for Different Approach to Platform Design

Hi PatR

It would be nice if you could put that company's name. I would like to see the products they offer. I suppose it's in military scope?. You can always learn things by looking at what others offer, thinking about implementing it in the drones I build.

I'll provide three manufacturers, Boeing, Aerovironment, and AAI/Textron, and all of them have been until the last few years military applications. At least two of them, Boeing and Aerovironment, initiated commercial operations in U.S. airspace under direct FAA oversight back in 2013. All of them are fixed wing examples but in principle the stable airframe concept is the same as it would work for classes of multirotors.

AAI became a government "Program of Record" with our government back around 1986. The platform used for that was the Pioneer, which remained in service with few changes aside from payloads and software until roughly 2007. In 2007 is was superseded with the Shadow, as system still in use today and similar in airframe design to the Pioneer. The Shadow is relatively unchanged from what it was at the time of release but has incorporated numerous payload improvements. About three years ago AAI began the introduction of the Aerosonde, a design that was bought from another company and originally developed by another company. The Aerosonde has been completely redesigned after the brand purchase was made. All their aircraft employ gas driven engines of various types.

Aerovironment has been highly successful since at least 2004 with their Raven and Puma class aircraft. The Puma has been and may still be in use for pipeline and other work in Alaska. The majority of system improvements have occurred via software, ground station, and payload upgrades. Aerovironment uses battery/electric propulsion systems.

Boeing/Insitu has been a sUAS market leader with their Scan Eagle platform, a gas engine platform that evolved from the original Aerosonde and Sea Scan platforms. Originally intended for the tuna fishing industry in the late 1990's it became military hardware after our government blocked the uncontrolled sale of UAS technology. Scan Eagle first saw military service in 2004 and has remained a reliable staple from then to the present. The airframe has received only minor alterations to improve flight efficiency, maintaining the same general size and shape since inception. It's modular design allows users to drop and swap virtually every component in time frames ranging from just a few minutes to an hour or so. An entire airframe can be assembled from modular components in only a couple hours by those trained on it. Payloads are diverse, with new payloads designed by Boeing and others introduced on a frequent basis. The Soft/Firmware is updated as needed to accept new components. As payloads much larger than the Scan Eagle can carry have been developed a second, larger platform was created to employ them, but the Scan Eagle remains highly desirable by Boeing's customers to this day. Although they have not sold millions of units the few thousand they have sold have their customers always coming back for more and their profitability exceeds DJI's.

Those are examples of how platform stability can combine with payload versatility to serve a broad market base over a long term and allow retention of existing customers while expanding that base further. A good design does not need to be discarded for another every 6 months to a year. The only reason for that is to induce people to retire something that works to buy something new only marginally better, if better at all. New platforms also introduce new problems, something that has remained a constant among multirotor manufacturers. The people that benefit the most from that process are the manufacturers. We should consider multirotor companies are not there to serve us, they are there to make money, and a constant phase out process serves them better than anyone else. If we were to look closely at system designs we would find that what changes most often are payloads and flight control upgrades. The components used to carry the payloads and power the systems remain largely unchanged. People constantly upgrading to new machines are paying as much or more for cosmetic changes as they are for actual upgrades. Change can be a very good thing but change needs to take place logically and only after full testing and validation has been completed. Once you have something that works you don't cast it aside for an unknown.
 
The problem is that a versatile platform tends to be bigger and heavier to accommodate possible changes in future - and in drones, each increase in size and weight has huge knock on effects. suddenly you're running with three batteries and need a trailer to move all the equipment.

This is at a time where the general trend is towards smaller, more tightly integrated devices.
 
Although I agree that size becomes an issue, it's also where having more than a single platform size becomes desirable in order to serve multiple markets. The people making serious money in the commercial market are not flying small aircraft, they are flying aircraft of a size necessary to carry the payloads necessary for the mission. Some good friends just landed a multi hundred thousand $$ contact in Arizona flying a Lidar system. Others I know are earning up to $8,000/day using higher end imaging devices on larger platforms. None of them can use something as small as a 520 to get the jobs done.

I suppose if all Yuneec wants to serve is the low level market by providing just the 520 it will do. There will come a time where those customers will become dissatisfied with the low level of earned revenue and gravitate to platforms that allow for much greater earning capacity. Certainly choices have to be made about the market you want to target. It can be a market limited in capability or a broader based market that's offered choice selections that will allow the customer to grow.

As for batteries, if all the batteries are of the same size and type it only becomes a matter of using multiples of the same battery. This is something already employed by those utilizing larger platforms. One size and type can fit all with batteries if the design considerations allowed for that in the beginning.

Good engineering is quite capable of designing larger aircraft having greater lift capability and reasonable flight duration, but there has to be a desire to do that. It's not possible to rise above the average population if we're satisfied with being part of the average population. You either have vision or you follow someone else that has it. You can cater to a single market or multiple makets.
 
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I'm going to focus on Aerovironment, I'm more interested in a purely electrical energy system.

Thank you for sharing the information.
 
You may also want to include Boeing then as they are adopting hydrogen fuel cell technologies for electrical propulsion units.
 
This is the very solution:
Take a frame of h480 or h920 and put into them it:

The Works Combo Kit

It's fit perfect into the H frame!!!

All's of pixhawke Power into our typhoon, and with some arrangement.... all's camera you want
e480ee9c6d59357a1fc2c1681cb8bd9b.jpg
c6f7aeda0086a1240b7c0586fab91e23.jpg
 
This is the very solution:
Take a frame of h480 or h920 and put into them it:

The Works Combo Kit

It's fit perfect into the H frame!!!

All's of pixhawke Power into our typhoon, and with some arrangement.... all's camera you want
e480ee9c6d59357a1fc2c1681cb8bd9b.jpg
c6f7aeda0086a1240b7c0586fab91e23.jpg

So it fits?
I have fantasized about adding this Spektreworks combo to a bare Typhoon frame for some time now.
Do you have pics?
How does it fly?
 
I flew Dragonfly when they were consumer and then bailed into commercial. I then flew with Steadidrone. Same thing they left consumer and went commercial.
Now I’m flying Yuneec. Hope they stay in the prosumer arena.

SteadiDrone
 
I tried locating a new Steadidrone several months ago. No joy. There weren't even any used ones to be found. As for Yuneec going the
"Prosumer" route, they have a good idea but unfortunately everything they are doing is like chasing after a train that left yesterday. You can't capture much market when all you're putting out was done by others a year or more previously. You have to get ahead of the pack and put things out there your competitor doesn't already sell For Yuneec they have but two areas to tout in the small multirotor market; using a hex instead of a quad and lack of data collection. In everything else they are far behind the competition. The only time they've managed to get ahead was with the original 920. With a total all up weight capability in excess of 30lbs it's all they had that could carry a serious payload.
 

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