Are propeller less drones in our future?

The Droning Company · Mar 9, 2022

The Future Is Near: Solid-State Silent Drone Project Gets Investment from NASA

Baconmaker · Mar 9, 2022

That's sweet

pretty interesting stuff!

db4476 · Mar 9, 2022

Possibly, but don't hold your breath, as there are many technical issues to overcome. Ion engines have been used on spacecraft before, but not in the atmosphere.

Cheers!

Starz · Mar 10, 2022

Interesting idea, but far from reality. At the 45 second mark in the video you can clearly see that the forward/vertical movement isn’t propulsion via anything other than the loaded spring tension and angle of the launch platform.
Possibly these guys have blood ties to Orville and Wilbur?
Gotta start somewhere I guess.

CactusJackSlade · Mar 17, 2022

Starz said:
Interesting idea, but far from reality. At the 45 second mark in the video you can clearly see that the forward/vertical movement isn’t propulsion via anything other than the loaded spring tension and angle of the launch platform.
Possibly these guys have blood ties to Orville and Wilbur?
Gotta start somewhere I guess.

(first) sustained flight appears to be at 2:59 in the video:
Not that this is practical, but it is interesting. Personally I would sacrifice a bit of flight time for quieter props. Typically to get real quiet requires much larger props spinning slower - not really conducive to the small folding drones most consumers want.

pelagic_one · Mar 18, 2022

From a different perspective, Phantom 1 was introduced January 2013, and the Mavic Pro came out only seven years ago; so who knows what the next decade will bring us?

Less than a decade ago, I was on the AT&T team who received a call from a startup company asking for 30 demo SIMs. After signing mutual NDAs they told us they wanted to build autonomous electric cars. Guess who that was.

eEridani · Mar 18, 2022

In 1973 I built my first ion motor. Not a lot of torque, but very easy to do and not technically challenging. I used a plastic spray can cap as the stator, and shaving razor blades to focus the ions, lol.

The upside for atmospheric flight is you have propellent all around you, unlike space where you have to carry the mass you need to throw away. So large thrust ion motors may happen some day.