JP2020066372A - Flight vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

To provide a flight vehicle having a new structure which enables improvement of flight efficiency.SOLUTION: A flight vehicle according to the invention can travel at least along a first direction and includes an airframe part and an accessory part. The airframe part has a body part and a lift generation part. The body part has a right part and a left part extending along the first direction and a connection part which connects end parts of the right part and the left part as seen in a second direction opposite to the first direction. The structure allows an enclosed space enclosed by the left part, the right part, and the connection part to exist when viewed from a third direction orthogonal to the first direction.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to an aircraft.

  In recent years, use of various services using flying bodies (hereinafter, simply referred to as “aircraft”) such as drones, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and airships used for various purposes. The place is expanding.

  When a flying object flies, it is common to maneuver manually to specify the desired flight and to specify the trajectory by autonomous flight software, but it does not physically determine the trajectory, so the equipment The trajectory may become unstable due to failure or external factors, and the desired flight may not be possible.

  In addition, if the air vehicle becomes out of control or fails, there is a risk of crash. Therefore, there are restrictions on where to fly.

  On the other hand, in Patent Document 1, a safe flight system is provided in which a drone is connected to a guideline and operated to make a desired flight or prevent a crash (for example, refer to Patent Document 1).

JP, 2017-214037, A

  In Patent Document 1, a guideline is provided on the flight trajectory of the drone, and the drone is provided with a structure for holding the guideline so that the guideline can be connected to the guideline. This will not only guide the drone, but also prevent the crash.

  However, in Patent Document 1, when the mechanism for holding the guideline is connected to the guideline, the connection is performed at the end of the guideline, and therefore the guideline and the mechanism for holding the guideline cannot be easily attached and detached.

In addition, the guide system based on the guideline provided in the drone in Patent Document 1 connects one departure point and one arrival point in a one-to-one relationship, and the guideline is branched into two or more branches to provide a plurality of arrival points. Is difficult.

  When an aircraft is used for shooting and transportation, it is desirable that the attachment and detachment of the aircraft and the guide means be easy in practice and maintenance. Further, in an application (for example, transportation) where one starting point may have a plurality of reaching points, the starting point and the reaching point connected by the guide are not limited to a one-to-one relationship, and branching etc. Being able to reach multiple destinations is important for the performance of work.

  In view of this, the present invention provides a flying body that can be easily attached and detached and can cope with branching of the guide means by providing an escape portion for escaping from the guide means with respect to the guided portion guided by the guide means. One purpose is to do.

  It is an object of the present invention to provide an aircraft having a structure that allows a vehicle to make a desired flight using a guide.

According to the invention,
A flying body that flies according to guide means extending linearly in the guide direction,
At least a flight unit for generating lift,
A body portion having a substantially annular guided portion configured to be able to maintain the guide means inside and having an escape portion for allowing the guided portion to escape from the guide means;
A flight vehicle including is obtained.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to provide an air vehicle that follows a guide.

1 is a front view of an air vehicle according to the present invention. It is a figure which shows the usage example of the flying body of FIG. It is a figure showing the state which escapes a guide means from the escape part of the flying body of FIG. It is a top view which shows the usage example of the flying body of FIG. It is a figure showing the state which branched the course by letting the guide means escape from the escape part of the flying body of FIG. It is another figure which shows the usage example of the flying body of FIG. It is a figure which shows operation | movement of the non-guide part in the flying body of FIG. It is a figure which shows the example of a shape of the non-guide part of the flying body of FIG. It is a figure which shows the example of a shape of the non-guide part of the flying body of FIG. It is a functional block diagram of the flying body of FIG.

The contents of the embodiments of the present invention will be listed and described. The aircraft according to the embodiment of the present invention has the following configuration.
[Item 1] A flying body which flies according to a guide means extending linearly in a guide direction,
At least a flight unit for generating lift,
A body portion having a substantially annular guided portion configured to be able to maintain the guide means inside and having an escape portion for allowing the guided portion to escape from the guide means;
Aircraft equipped with.
[Item 2]
The aircraft according to claim 1, wherein
The guide means includes a first guide line and at least one second guide line branched and extending from a branch point of the first guide line,
Flying along the second guide line by letting the guided part escape from the first guide line through the escape part,
Flying body.
[Item 3]
The aircraft according to claim 1 or claim 2,
The guided portion has means for changing the position of the escape portion,
Aircraft [Item 4]
The aircraft according to any one of claims 1 to 3,
The escape portion is a slit provided in at least a part of the substantially annular shape,
Flying body.

(Overview)
<Details of the embodiment according to the present invention>
Hereinafter, an air vehicle according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the air vehicle 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention can fly by following the linearly extending guide means 50.

<Details of the first embodiment according to the present invention>
Hereinafter, a first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. Here, a small unmanned rotorcraft is used for ease of explanation, but this is merely an example and does not limit the form of the flying body. For example, it may be a manned aircraft or an unmanned aircraft, and the flying body may be an airship, a fixed-wing aircraft, a rotary-wing aircraft, or the like.

  Further, the structure and shape are merely examples, and any member may be used as long as it has a function necessary for carrying out the present invention.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the aircraft according to the present embodiment can advance at least in the forward direction D1 (first direction: + Y direction) and in the backward direction D2 (second direction: −Y direction). can do. Further, it can rise in the upward direction (third direction: + Z direction) and descend in the downward direction (-Z direction).

The flying body 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention includes a flying unit 10 and a main body unit 20, and the flying unit 10 has a mechanism necessary to fly the flying unit 100: for example, a wing for generating lift. , A propeller or the like, a gas or the like for generating buoyancy, and a motor or engine for generating thrust, but are not limited thereto.
The main body portion 20 includes at least a guided portion 21: a portion guided along the guide means 50. In addition, a load, a photographing device, a mounting unit for mounting a sensor, a working unit for performing work, and the like may be provided.

  The guide means 50 extends linearly in the guide direction to guide the guided portion 21 to cause the flying object 100 to fly as desired. At this time, not only one guide means 50 but also a plurality of guide means 50 may be used. The material of the guide means 50 may be a flexible material such as a wire or an electric wire, or may be a hard material such as metal or resin.

  The guide means 50 and the guided portion 21 may or may not be in contact with each other as long as they can serve the purpose of guiding. For example, the guide purpose can be achieved by sandwiching the guide means 50 with a plurality of spheres or recognizing the guide means 50 with a camera or the like. In the case of non-contact, since there is no contact between the guide means 50 and the non-guide portion 21, it can be operated without being affected by friction or the like.

  In addition to guiding the flight vehicle 100, the guide means 50 also has a fail-safe function when an abnormality occurs in the flight vehicle 100 or when flight becomes difficult due to an external factor (details will be described later). .

  If the flying body 100 has a structure that is difficult to separate from the guide means 50, even if the flying body 100 falls into an uncontrollable state or an unflyable state, it is easy to limit the place of the crash to the place, and the surrounding safety is improved. In addition to being secured, it is easy to soften the impact of a fall by providing a cushioning material at the relevant location. Further, when the guide means 50 extends substantially horizontally with respect to the ground surface, the flying body 100 is in a state of being suspended from the guide, and therefore does not fall.

  At least one guided portion 21 is provided with respect to the main body portion 20, and has a substantially annular shape through which the guide means 50 can be inserted. The shape may be a polygonal shape, an elliptical shape, or the like as long as it can be inserted, and the shape is not necessarily circular.

The guided portion 21 is provided with at least one escape portion 25, and the escape portion 25 has a size that allows the guide means 50 to escape. As a result, the guide means 50 can be easily inserted into or removed from the guided portion 21.

As shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, the guide means 50 may include at least one or more second guide lines 52 that branch and extend from the branch points of the first guide lines 51. By providing the branch, it is possible to have a plurality of guide directions.

For example, in the case of transportation, it is possible to provide a branch point in the middle of the guide means 50 extending from one warehouse to subdivide the transportation destination or to transport the transportation with a plurality of points as a network configuration.

When the flying body 100 flying according to the first guide line 51 is made to follow the second guide line 52, the guided portion 21 is released from the first guide line 51 through the escape portion 25, as shown in FIG. As a result, it is possible to follow the second guide line 52.

Since the guide line to be followed can be changed in a state in which at least one of the first guide line 51 and the second guide line 52 is followed, it is possible to continue operation while preventing separation from the guide means 50 and crash of the aircraft 100. Is possible.

As shown in FIGS. 3 and 8, the escape portion 25 may be a slit provided in at least a part of the guided portion 21 having a substantially annular shape.

As shown in FIG. 7, the guided portion 21 may have means for changing the position of the escape portion 25. By changing the position of the escape portion 25, it becomes possible to select the direction in which the guided portion 21 escapes from the guide means 50 as shown in FIGS. 7 (a) and 7 (b), and as shown in FIG. 7 (c). As described above, it is possible to set the guided portion 21 in a state where the guided portion 21 does not separate from the guide means 50.

Also, the same effect can be obtained by using a structure capable of opening and closing the escape portion 25. For example, in addition to the link mechanism as shown in FIG. 9, it is possible to increase or decrease the space by a slide mechanism, a hinge, a stretchable member or a shrinkable member.

  In the case where the guide means 50 has a portion extending in the vertical direction, when the aircraft 100 moves in the vertical direction, the main body portion 20 is tilted in a substantially horizontal direction to guide the guide means. The guided portion 21 can be arranged along the line 50. Similarly, in the case where the guide means 50 has a portion extending in the horizontal direction, when the aircraft 100 moves in the horizontal direction, the main body portion 20 is made substantially upright so that the guide means 50 moves. The guided portion 21 can be placed along the line.

  Even when the guide means 50 is extended in various directions, it can be dealt with by adjusting the inclination direction and angle of the main body. For example, the guide means 50 extending from the second floor of a building to the second floor of another building in a substantially horizontal direction is further extended in a substantially vertical direction to the third floor, thereby expanding the choice of directions.

  The above-mentioned aircraft has, for example, the functional blocks shown in FIG. The functional blocks in FIG. 8 are the minimum reference configurations.

  The flight controller can have one or more processors, such as programmable processors (eg, central processing unit (CPU)).

  The flight controller has a memory (not shown) and can access the memory. The memory stores logic, code, and / or program instructions that the flight controller can execute to perform one or more steps.

  The memory may include, for example, a separable medium such as an SD card or random access memory (RAM) or an external storage device. Data obtained from cameras and sensors may be directly transmitted to and stored in the memory. For example, still image / moving image data captured by a camera or the like is recorded in an internal memory or an external memory.

The flight controller includes a control module configured to control the condition of the air vehicle. For example, the control module may adjust the spatial arrangement, velocity, and / or acceleration of a vehicle having 6 degrees of freedom (translational motions x, y and z, and rotational motions θ _x , θ _y and θ _z ). Controls the propulsion mechanism (motor, etc.) of the air vehicle. The control module can control one or more of the states of the mount and sensors.

  The flight controller is capable of communicating with a transceiver configured to transmit and / or receive data from one or more external devices (eg, terminals, displays, or other remote controls). The transceiver can use any suitable communication means, such as wired or wireless communication.

  For example, the transmission / reception unit uses one or more of a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), infrared, wireless, WiFi, point-to-point (P2P) network, telecommunications network, cloud communication and the like. be able to.

  The transmission / reception unit can transmit and / or receive one or more of data acquired by the sensors, processing results generated by the flight controller, predetermined control data, a user command from a terminal or a remote controller, and the like. .

  The sensors according to the present embodiment may include an inertial sensor (acceleration sensor, gyro sensor), a GPS sensor, a proximity sensor (eg, rider), or a vision / image sensor (eg, camera).

  The air vehicle of the present invention can be expected to be used as an industrial air vehicle in home delivery, monitoring, investigation, photographing, and the like. Further, the flying object of the present invention can be used in airplane-related industries such as multicopter drones, and further, the present invention can be suitably used as an aerial imaging flying object equipped with a camera and the like. Besides, it can be used for various industries such as security field, agriculture, infrastructure monitoring, manned attraction, etc.

  The above-described embodiments are merely examples for facilitating the understanding of the present invention, and are not intended to limit the interpretation of the present invention. It goes without saying that the present invention can be modified and improved without departing from the spirit thereof and that the present invention includes equivalents thereof.

100, 110 Flight object 10 Flight part 11a-11d Propeller 12 Arm 13 Frame 14 Motor 20 Main body part 21 Guided part 25 Escape part 30 Connection part 50 Guide means 51 First guide line 52 Second guide line

Claims (4)

A flying body that flies according to guide means extending linearly in the guide direction,
At least a flight unit for generating lift,
A body portion having a substantially annular guided portion configured to be able to maintain the guide means inside and having an escape portion for allowing the guided portion to escape from the guide means;
Aircraft equipped with. The aircraft according to claim 1, wherein
The guide means includes a first guide line and at least one second guide line branched and extending from a branch point of the first guide line,
Flying along the second guide line by letting the guided part escape from the first guide line through the escape part,
Flying body. The aircraft according to claim 1 or claim 2,
The guided portion has means for changing the position of the escape portion,
Flying body The aircraft according to any one of claims 1 to 3,
The escape portion is a slit provided in at least a part of the substantially annular shape,
Flying body.

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