Finally a drone inspired by the aerial screws imagined by Leonardo da Vinci!

There are drone and drone… The one designed by the team ofUniversity of Maryland in the United States, is very particular with its helical propellers. They come to remind aerial screw imagined by Leonardo DeVinci at the end of the fifteenth^and century. And for good reason ! They are totally inspired by it. While they were at first skeptical, it is with surprise that the researchers were able to take off and evolve theaircraft animated by its four rotors turning these screw-shaped propellers. The scientists were able to present their results at the conference Transformative Vertical Flight 2022 in San José, California (USA) recently.

We are far from the experiments of the Renaissance. Instead of drinkof the canvas of linen and leather isaluminum and plastic who was used to design this drone with a particular look. It is also the modelization computer which allowed to optimize the design of the propellers to check their aerodynamic behavior.

Towards a flying taxi with an aerial screw?

The researchers also agreed that the format quadcopter with its four rotors which ensure flight stability, is the only aircraft architecture to be able to exploit this helical shape of propellers. After these chip jumps as test flights, the researchers consider that their human-scaled technology could make it possible to transport a person without difficulties. Besides the fact of having been able to exploit an invention dating from the end of the 1480s, the researchers do not explain whether the use of these screw propellers makes it possible to optimize performance during the flight of the aircraft.