A Swedish engineer explored a whole new world by constructing and piloting a homemade flying carpet multirotor. Using eight petrol motors on a tube-framed lattice structure, the man, who posts YouTube DIY tutorials under the name “amazingdiyprojects,” also placed a lightweight chair on top of his platform.
The design is far from flawless, as seen when the device experienced an engine failure, falling into a patch of trees and badly wrecking itself. While its combustion engines can carry a plentiful amount of fuel, the machine’s faults include mechanical complexity and flammability. Gas engines also aren’t very ideal for stabilizing a flying platform, often failing to respond to throttle inputs quickly. A flight controller needs to make speed adjustments on a moment’s notice, generating different amounts of power depending on how fast the engine is running. These varying power results are due to the fact that gas engines have odd power output curves.
The engineer adjusted the design after its engine failure and has been posting videos of him flying it up to around 15 feet in an empty outdoor area. “It’s a really nice flight feeling,” he said in a video. “You can really feel that you’re up in a thin medium.”
There have been more formal attempts at a “flying carpet” in the past, such as Franky Zapata’s invention, the Flyboard Air. He designed a jet-powered hoverboard that took the Internet by storm, with many commenters insisting that the machine was a fake. Zapata proved the naysayers wrong, uploading a video of him flying the hoverboard over a body of water. While the amazingdiyprojects prototype supports more weight, Zapata’s creation relies on a built-in logic system for stabilization. “We use the same kind of electronics like you use on a drone to stabilize,” he said in an interview with The Verge . “The problem is to create the algorithms, the right algorithms, to combine the intelligence in your board and in your brain.”
In 2011, a “flying carpet” of electrified plastic was invented at Princeton, copying the look of a magic carpet by lifting sheets of conductive plastic with waves of electrical current. The plastic sheets’ rippling involves thin air pockets, leading to some brief movement back and forth. However, creator Noah Jafferis claims that the system’s movement resembles that of a hovercraft rather than an airplane – like Zapata’s device, the plastic sheet is actually very unlike a levitating rug.
As neither of these other designs resemble an actual flying carpet, the Swedish contraption is likely the closest to the public’s ideal vision of a magic carpet. While there are no evident plans for the engineer to market his design, he is certainly invested in making the carpet as impeccable as possible.
Source: Gizmag, amazingdiyprojects, The Verge, CNET
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