The Exoskid
The Exoskid is our sub-scale prototype and an awesome system in itself. It consists of a custom built RC-airplane that can flap its wings. It can be controlled normally with a transmitter but also, upon flick of the switch, with our exoskeleton prototype. This way, the arms control the main wing (flapping, aileron) and the ankles control rudder and elevator. With first-person-view (FPV) goggles, the pilot can see through the camera in the nose of the plane. So while flying the exoskeleton, the pilot can basically control the plane the same way the flying exoskeleton will be controlled. And let me tell you: this already feels quite like flying just with your arms!
The Exoskeleton Prototype
This mother is laser-cut from our designs with some extra parts from the 3D-printer. The main structure is made of 4 mm plywood. On the joints, sensors in the form of potentiometers and rotary encoders are placed. They allow the Arduino Mega2560 to pick up the motions of the bearer and send them out via pulse pause modulation (PPM) signal to the transmitter. With the help of the awesome RC Groups, we managed to hack our Flysky-i6X and feed the PPM to the OpenTX firmware we flashed on it (big shout-out to qba667, ajjjjjjjj and all the others from RC Groups and OpenTX! You guys rock.)
To give something back, we declare the exoskeleton prototype open hardware. The schematics can be found here. Enjoy! And tell us about it, if you do something great!
To give something back, we declare the exoskeleton prototype open hardware. The schematics can be found here. Enjoy! And tell us about it, if you do something great!
The RC Airplane
An RC airplane with flapping wings! Not often this can be seen in the skies. This one is particularly cool, as every part of its wing can be controlled separately. This way, one can control every servo directly with the exoskeleton. All joints of the main wings are actuated with transmission. Apart from direct control we also programmed an auto-flapping mode which can still be controlled by the pilot(s).
To optimize the flapping and get maximum thrust from it, we got help from Dr. Wolfgang Send, the father of the Smart Bird. Dr. Send investigated oscillating airfoils and aeroelasticity for many years at the DLR Göttingen and is using his expertise at the moment to construct highly efficient delivery drones. He also investigated the concept of a flapping flyer for human transportation previously, winning the Berblinger-Preis of the city of Ulm in 2006. Very cool!
The airplane is manufactured mostly via 3D printing (the black stuff) and a special kind of modelling foam board (the brown things). The parts are mostly screwed together, with only a few parts being glued, making repairs quite simple and fast.
To optimize the flapping and get maximum thrust from it, we got help from Dr. Wolfgang Send, the father of the Smart Bird. Dr. Send investigated oscillating airfoils and aeroelasticity for many years at the DLR Göttingen and is using his expertise at the moment to construct highly efficient delivery drones. He also investigated the concept of a flapping flyer for human transportation previously, winning the Berblinger-Preis of the city of Ulm in 2006. Very cool!
The airplane is manufactured mostly via 3D printing (the black stuff) and a special kind of modelling foam board (the brown things). The parts are mostly screwed together, with only a few parts being glued, making repairs quite simple and fast.
Electronics
Wildly underestimated, but a crucial part of the Exoskid. The transmitter signal is received on the airplane's FS-iA6B receiver. But instead of directly controlling the servos, the signal is extracted with an Arduino Nano 33 IoT who subsequently does a lot of logic and calibration and then controls the servos. Some more info on the electronics can be found on the blog!