“The rear-facing sensors are, for the first time, placed toward the front of the drone. But why? As it turns out, this placement came ultimately as a solution to a series of several challenges.
To reduce overall load, the team looked for ways to replace an internal cooling fan, which came in the form of the rear propellers and arms redesigned to feed air into a set of holes in the back. But this novel cooling solution created a tradeoff: the new propeller and arm structure would prevent the rear-facing sensors from seeing with an unobstructed view. If the propellers and rear arms were raised, it would let the rear sensors see clearly, but this would bring the propellers away from the holes, decreasing their cooling ability, which would also shorten battery life. One problem soon became a stack of them.
After several rounds of discussion and redesign, a completely different idea emerged: why not place the rear-facing sensors toward the front of the aircraft? It had never been done before, but the team found that it worked perfectly. They suddenly found that all the problems were solved after we placed the sensors up front, creating a clear FOV for them while preserving the propellers’ optimal ability to cool the drone.”
