On: Go Where No Drone Has Gone Before

[wyager]

Here's an idea I had recently - are you aware if anyone's tried this? An aircraft with coax rotors. Off-axis torque is achieved by changing the angle of the blades independently around the rotor. If thrust vector is in Z direction, and you want to rotate in XZ plane, you increase AoA of rotors in +X direction and decrease AoA in -X direction, causing differential thrust which rotates the aircraft from pointing in Z to pointing more towards -X. Control would probably be via 4 or more cams around the shaft.

[bri3d → wyager]

I think you're describing a collective pitch coaxial helicopter - these exist in full size as well.

But by your description, with more fine-grained control than a swash plate, maybe?

[wyager → bri3d]

> collective pitch coaxial helicopter

Yep, that's it! I see some drone videos with exactly what I was imagining. Russian KA-52 looks like full size version.

I didn't know about swash plates but that's basically what I had in mind.

[trees101 → wyager]

do you mean like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra-rotating_propellers ?