Da Vinci's "Helicopter" Revives with Modern Drones-CNET Japan

In the late 1480s, Leonardo da Vinci sketched out a wonderful design of a one-seater helicopter flying with an "aerial screw". Those who have seen it may have wondered if such a helicopter would really fly.

And now we know the answer. The genius Italian was right.

Starting in 2019, the University of Maryland engineering team has designed and tested the underlying technology of the helicopter as part of a design contest. Over the course of a year and a half, team member Austin Prete assembled the unmanned quadcopter drone "Crimson Spin" using a screw-like design drawn by Da Vinci and repeated short flights several times. ..

"I was really surprised that it worked," Prete said. He is a graduate student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland and assembled the drone for his master's degree. Prete and the others were initially skeptical, but it was exciting to see that some computer simulations and 3D-printed screw prototypes were promising.

At the Transformative Vertical Flight 2022 conference on vertical takeoff and landing aircraft technology in San Jose, California in late January, Prete first showed the drone flying in a video.

This project is a good example of how the latest technology is moving away from traditional airplanes and helicopters. That said, aircraft like the flying corkscrew envisioned in the 15th century will not deliver Amazon's luggage in the near future. At this conference, a number of eccentric aircraft that could take off vertically like a helicopter and fly horizontally like an airplane were unveiled. Companies such as Kittyhawk, Airbus, Transcend Air, and Jaunt want to revolutionize air transportation and carry people in flying taxis.

Prete made only small drones, but the technology could be applied to aircraft large enough to carry people. "I'm confident we should be able to scale this up well," he said.

Prete benefits from materials that Da Vinci didn't get.

The most advanced building materials of the Renaissance, such as wood and leather, are too heavy to be used in aircraft. Also, there was no compact energy source in the days of Da Vinci.

Prete, on the other hand, could design air screws using aluminum, plastic, motors, batteries, and computer control systems. CAD and computational fluid dynamics software also helped Prete design prototypes and simulate aerodynamics on a computer.

This article was edited by Asahi Interactive for Japan from an article from overseas Red Ventures.