Invention: Invisible Drones

"Persistence of vision" turns the fast-moving rotors of any helicopter into a near-transparent blur, while the slow-moving body looks solid. Inventor Michael Dammar has come up with a way of making the whole body of an aircraft spin as it flies, turning it into a single blur in the sky.

The so-called Phantom Sentinel aircraft is Y-shaped, consisting of a single long wing attached to two short aerodynamic extensions which each end in a propeller. And the weight is carefully balanced so that the centre of mass is positioned between the two extensions. When the motors are running, the solid part of the aircraft spins around this centre of mass, and the longer wing generates lift. The whole thing moves so fast that persistence of vision turns it into a single blur.

Making the plane sky blue, or largely transparent, should help conceal it further, Dammar claims. He adds that a camera can be placed near the centre of mass and used to build a panoramic picture of the ground below, after software processing.

Invisible Drones

Perhaps invisible for the eye? But for the radar and other sorts of electronics, no.

How many of our enemies in Iraq are using radar?

The crew will get sick if it spins in flight.

Originally posted by PBscientist
How many of our enemies in Iraq are using radar?

Who said it would be for missions in Iraq only. This is a concpet for the future.

Originally posted by silk101
The crew will get sick if it spins in flight.

Who said it would have a crew?

thats pretty trippy looking.

and incase ya havn't seen the video of it in flight. click here

It says that it uses its own software to put together a panoramic picture.
So it seems that it cant do live video streams...it likely takes several pictures while spinning, and put them into its software, and produces an image once done.

While its certainly an interesting idea...I dont think it could even compete with the army's FCS OAV's, they have a ducted fan to stay aloft...and if you paint them camoflauged...I think they to would be hard to spot...especially like a 1000 feet up.

What I saw in the video wasn't that "invisable". Also, like a helicopter, this thing will be easy to hear.

Tim

Yeah I agree it didn't look that invisible to me but from 1,000+ feet it might be harder to spot. However I disagree that it would be easy to hear, and comparing it's sound signature to that of a helicopter IMO is ridicules.

Much much much better stuff here and news.bbc.co.uk...

if you shape the propellers the right way, it makes it quiter..i seen it on new heliocopters

Originally posted by silk101
The crew will get sick if it spins in flight.

The post is about drones, which have no crews, but here's technology that seems to be coming along quite nicely.

It's covered here:

Cloaking Device Created