Hexacopter

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/6194911]
Quad copters have been pretty popular for the last few years, but this one is new to us. Take the same basic layout, but bump it to 6 rotors. Then you’ll have the hexacopter (google translated). With 6 rotors, built in GPS and stabilization and a camera mounted on the bottom, this thing is pretty well equipped. You can see how agile and stable it is in the video above. We know it isn’t necessarily new, but it is new to us. Of course, you don’t have to stop at 6 rotors. You could always just continue on to 8.

70 thoughts on “Hexacopter

  1. I’m amazed how much this thing can pick up. It almost looks like you could make bigger and it might pick up a person. Imagine these things transporting soldiers in war. I bet one that scaled at 3ft could lift a person. all you would have to do is get it to hover then grab on and go. The noise would suck to listen to.

  2. “Of coarse”

    Oh god, the misspelling hurts. That one is so obvious!

    Cool copter though. I’ve got to built one of these!

    One thing I just realized is that is you assume you’re never going to reverse the motors (probably a safe assumption), the motor controller gets *way* simpler – just one MOSFET, instead of 4, per motor. Unless they’re brushless, but I haven’t seen many hobby brushless motor controllers. I have been thinking about building one actually…

    If i ever did make a good hobby brushless motor controller, would any of you be interested? Or does someone already make them?
    -Taylor

  3. 3:09

    Soon all mikrocopters will turn on its owners and slice their heads open!!

    @taylor
    I don’t know where you have been all these years, but 95% of all hobbyist multirotors are brushless, and I would say the vast majority of electric RCs are brushless also. maybe 5 years ago brushless was still expensive, but today you can pick up a motor and ESC for under $10.

    By the way, this looks like it is using a custom designed ESC from scratch – usually the mikrocopter guys reflash the mega8’s on store-bought ESCs for use with I2C. interesting

  4. Urban Aeronautics of Israel is developing an unmanned medevac/cargo VTOL aircraft according to Aviation Week. Looks like it uses fans for lift and propulsion. I would hate to wake up inside a pilotless craft on my way to the med center!

  5. I can see this simplifying the lives of many..
    well, at least me.
    If you could pre-program GPS locations and a safe travel route, I would never leave the house. if one of my friends wanted something, I’d send this thing on its way.
    How much would one of these cost to make?
    or fix, if it broke?
    probably too much for me.
    the only thing that worries me, is the “hover” at about neck-level.. there should be a safeguard so it can only hover at, say, 7 feet.

  6. I don’t know what’s happened to this website, but it’s taken a decidedly different direction. Not too sure how I like it yet, but the writers need to go back to high school and refresh their writing skills, especially when it comes to their spelling and grammar.

    It’s called, `spell check’. Try it, you’ll like it and we’ll all appreciate you all the more for it when you do. Until then, this website has gotten so sophomoric in its writing, it’s no longer fun to visit.

  7. If you have more blades you have some kind of redundancy.
    if you, for example hit an object or there is an malfunction and the blades brake or the motor stops working, this thing is flyable. you can land it safely.

    As far as i know the altitude can be hold acurately be 20 mm with a air pressure sensor.

    Don’t know if you guys know what i mean. My english is not that good burt my german is ;)

    Greetings from Austria

  8. Simply stunning!

    The stability & speed is amazing, with some sonar distance sensors added I’m guessing it would make it fairly crash-proof in an urban environment.

    I’ve wanted a decent four-blade coptor ever since I first saw them, but stuff that, now I want a six-bladed one! :D

  9. There is more to it then the kopter itself. The Quadrokopters/Hexacopters/Optokopters are sold as a kit only – otherwise the shipping charges would be exponential. If somebody wants to get engaged, there are a few things to know upfront. Here are a few links to get you thinking:
    Things to consider before buying: http://nghobbies.com/forum/index.php?topic=30.0
    Functions:
    http://nghobbies.com/forum/index.php?topic=31.0
    Transmitter selection:
    http://nghobbies.com/forum/index.php?topic=32.0
    Skills required for this project:
    http://nghobbies.com/forum/index.php?topic=33.0

    Make sure you read these to have a better understanding. All these pages are in English, so it should be easy enough.

  10. Holy crap, it’s a hoverdrone (from Dark Angel)! I’ve also been interested in building a ridable version for a while, but you can’t scale a quadricopter up enough because the rotors get too big, you have to make them variable pitch instead of fixed pitch, and it just becomes more practical to make a helicopter. With this approach I can really see 8 – 10 small (12-18″) rotors working in a rideable ‘flying saucer’ configuration. Ideal power source would be nanophosphate lithium batteries but as yet they still only give a flight time of a few minutes; maybe a hybrid drive with a central ~100kW engine generating electricity to run a bunch of 10kW fixed pitch rotors?

  11. i think i may make a few, then sell em to local coke dealers so they can fly there coke over the border. if it can carry 1Kg then i would be able to sell them for 5 grand easy cause they would be carrying a 30 grand payload

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