JP2694901B2 - Remote-controlled helicopter - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a helicopter remotely controlled by radio control or the like, and particularly to connecting the helicopter to the ground with a wire for controlling a flight area, Regarding the improvement of spraying efficiency when used for spraying fertilizer, paint, fire extinguishing agent, etc.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, a remote-controlled helicopter may be used for spraying agricultural chemicals, for example. In this case, it is important to disperse efficiently without leaving an unscattered area. As such a pesticide spraying helicopter, the sixth conventional
The one shown in the figure is general. In the figure, 31 is a remote control unmanned helicopter for spraying pesticides, and a spraying device of this sprayer has a nozzle header 33 as a spraying main pipe connected to a chemical pump, a leg portion of the machine body 32, and a right angle with the axis line L of the machine body. Mounted in the direction of the spray nozzle on the lower side of the nozzle header 33.
34 are arranged at a predetermined pitch.

In this helicopter 31, since a large number of spray nozzles 34 are arranged on a line perpendicular to the flight direction (arrow A), it is possible to spray over the arrangement width of the nozzles in one flight, and the spray efficiency is high.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

By the way, in pesticide spraying using the above-mentioned unmanned helicopter, since the flight area is considerably wide and the helicopter flies to a position far away from the operator, it is possible to accurately control the flight position of the helicopter by remote control. Is very difficult.

Therefore, the present inventors have developed an unmanned helicopter in which the rear part of the airframe is connected to the ground by a wire that regulates a flight area, as a helicopter capable of facilitating the above remote control. However, although this unmanned helicopter can easily control the flight area, there is a concern that the spraying efficiency will decrease if the above-mentioned conventional spraying device is mounted as it is.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a remote-controlled helicopter capable of improving control accuracy and spraying efficiency in a flight area when the helicopter according to the above-mentioned development is used for spraying a drug or the like.

[Means for solving the problem]

The present invention is a remote-controlled helicopter in which a rear part of a fuselage is connected to the ground by a wire that regulates a flight area, and a spraying device for spraying a spraying agent such as agricultural chemicals is mounted, and a spraying nozzle for discharging the spraying agent is provided. A plurality of spray nozzles are provided, and the spray nozzles are arranged in parallel below the main rotor and on a line substantially in the same direction as the wire.

Here, in the present invention, arranging the spray nozzle substantially in the wire direction means that the helicopter of the present invention flies on an arc having a radius of the wire, that is, in a direction perpendicular to the wire, and thus in a direction substantially perpendicular to the flight direction. The purpose is to arrange a nozzle in the. Therefore, this includes not only the case of arranging in parallel with the wire but also the case of arranging on a line forming an angle (for example, 45 degrees or less) with the wire direction to some extent.

[Action]

In the present invention, since the airframe is connected to the ground by the restriction wire, the helicopter is restricted in the front-back direction so as to follow an arc having the restriction wire as a radius, so the operator should pay attention only to the vertical and horizontal directions of the helicopter. Therefore, as compared with the conventional case of controlling up / down, left / right and front / back, the control becomes easier and the control accuracy of the flight area is improved.

And in this case, since a plurality of spray nozzles are arranged in parallel on the line in the wire direction, since the helicopter flies with the wire as a radius, the helicopter is sprayed for each flight according to the disposition width of the spray nozzle. The same spraying efficiency as in the conventional case can be secured.

〔Example〕

 Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

1 to 3 are views for explaining one embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, reference numeral 1 is a remote-controlled unmanned helicopter for spraying pesticides, and a leg portion 3 for supporting the helicopter 1 is attached to a lower surface of a front portion of a body 2 of the helicopter 1, and an engine, a receiver and a flight are provided in the front portion. It is equipped with a controller and servo mechanism. The main rotor 4 is attached to a drive shaft extending substantially vertically upward from the engine. Also, Aircraft 2
A tail rotor 5 is attached to the rear end of the tail rotor 5 for canceling the reversal torque generated by the main rotor 4. In addition, 6 is a tail.

A support bracket 7 extending to the rear of the tail rotor 5 is fixed to the rear portion of the machine body 2, and a rear end of the support bracket 7 is connected to a wire drive device 9 on the ground. The drive device 9 is mainly composed of the wire 8
From a reel 10 for winding or sending out the wire, a motor 11 for rotating the wire forward and backward, and an encoder 12 as a wire length detector for detecting and instructing the length of the wire 8 up to the helicopter 1. It is configured.

A sprayer 13 of the drug spraying device is arranged on the leg portion 3 of the machine body 2. The spraying device 13 is configured by attaching a plurality of spraying nozzles 15 to a nozzle header 14 at predetermined intervals. The nozzle header 15 makes an angle of about 25 degrees with the axis L of the machine body 2 on the back side of the tail rotor 5. The reason why the rear side of the tail rotor 5 is shifted in this way is to prevent the atomized medicine from the spray nozzle 15 from being sucked into the tail rotor 5.

Although not shown, the nozzle header 14 is connected to a chemical pump installed in the machine body 2. Furthermore, in the fuselage 2, the spray control device 16 and the atmospheric pressure sensor 17 are provided.
Is equipped with this spray control device 16
The altitude is calculated from the atmospheric pressure detected by 17 and the atmospheric pressure on the ground, and the chemical pump is stopped when the altitude exceeds a reference altitude. This is to prevent the sprayed chemicals from being blown out of the spraying area due to wind or the like when the altitude becomes too high.

 Next, the operation and effect of this embodiment will be described.

In order to spray pesticides with the helicopter 1 of this embodiment, the drive motor 11 of the wire drive device 9 rotates the reel 10 to send out the wire 8 by a fixed amount, and maneuver it on an arc whose radius is the wire length. The person controls the flight position of the helicopter 1 in the left-right direction and the up-down direction, and operates the above-mentioned spraying device in this state. Then, the chemical liquid is sprayed with the arrangement width of the spray nozzle 15 along the arc having the radius of the wire.
In this case, when the helicopter 1 flies from the left end to the right end, for example, the wire 8 is extended again, and the pesticide is sprayed while re-flying in the opposite direction. At this time, flight direction (arrow B)
Since the spray nozzles 15 are arranged in a substantially right-angled direction, it is possible to realize spraying with a nozzle arrangement width for each flight, and spray efficiency is improved.

Further, the tail rotor 5 rotates around a horizontal axis, sucks air from its front side (lower side in FIG. 1) and discharges it to its rear side (upper side in FIG. 1). Therefore, when the spray nozzles are arranged in the front-rear direction of the machine body, there is a concern that the atomized medicine from the spray nozzles arranged near the tail rotor may be disturbed by the air flow and flow to the rear side of the rotor. On the other hand, in the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1, since the nozzle header 14 is arranged at an angle with respect to the machine body axis L, the spray nozzles 15 on the tail rotor 5 side are arranged on the tail rotor 5 side. Since it is located on the rear side, the above-mentioned problem of the disturbance of the sprayed drug hardly occurs.

Various modifications can be considered for the method of separating the spray nozzle 15 from the tail rotor 5 described above. For example, as shown by the chain double-dashed line in FIG. 5 to the rear side, the second
As shown by the broken line and two-dot chain line in the figure, only the rear side portion 14b of the nozzle header 14 is bent diagonally or stepwise, or as shown by the one-dot chain line in the figure, the entire nozzle header 14 is lowered downward. It can also be realized by moving and separating from the tail rotor 5.

Further, in the above embodiment, an example of a helicopter having a tail rotor has been described, but in the helicopter according to the present invention,
It is not always necessary to provide a tail rotor. 4 and 5 show the second and third embodiments in which the tail rotor is eliminated. In the drawings, the same reference numerals as those in FIGS. 1 to 3 indicate the same or corresponding portions.

In FIG. 4 showing the second embodiment, a rod-shaped bracket member 2a is fixed to the rear end of the machine body 2 and extends in the outer rotation region of the rotor 4. Therefore, in this embodiment, the line connecting the rotating shaft 4a of the rotor 4 and the bracket 2a is the machine body axis L. A restriction wire 8 is connected to the rear end of the bracket member 2a.

In addition, in this embodiment, the nozzle header 14 which is the main pipe for spraying the medicine is arranged in a direction substantially parallel to the wire 8. Therefore, the plurality of nozzles 15 mounted on the nozzle header 14 are arranged on a straight line forming an angle θ with respect to the machine body axis L.

In the helicopter of this embodiment, the aircraft axis L and the wire 8 fly in balance with each other at an angle θ.
That is, at the connection point between the wire 5 and the bracket member 2a, the component force So = S × si of the wire tension S in the direction perpendicular to the machine body axis L.
nθ is generated, and the torque due to the component force So is balanced with the reversal torque T of the rotor 4, so that the tail rotor can be eliminated. Note that l is the distance between the rotor 4 and the wire connection point.

As described above, in this embodiment, the helicopter 1 flies on an arc having the radius of the wire 8 in a direction substantially perpendicular to the wire 8 (arrow B), and accordingly, the helicopter 1 flies so that the spray nozzle 15 moves. Spraying is carried out by the arrangement width, and as a result, the spraying efficiency is improved.

Further, in this example, since the tail rotor is abolished, there is no problem that the sprayed medicine is diffused by the air flow of the rotor, and the spraying efficiency is improved also from this point.

In the third embodiment (FIG. 5), the connecting bracket member 2c is extended diagonally rearward from the rear portion 2b of the machine body 2
This is an example in which the wire 8 is connected to the extension end of 2c, and in this case also, the spray nozzle 15 is located on a straight line substantially parallel to the wire 8. Also in this example, the helicopter 1 flies on an arc having the wire 8 as a radius, and the nozzle 15
The spraying efficiency can be improved without spraying the chemicals by the width of arrangement and without disturbing the chemicals by the tail rotor.

It should be noted that although the pesticide spraying has been described in the above embodiment, the present invention is not limited to the spraying of the pesticide and can be applied to the spraying of seeds, fertilizers, fire extinguishing agents and the like.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described above, according to the remote-controlled helicopter according to the present invention, the fuselage is connected to the ground by the wire that regulates the flight area, and a plurality of spray nozzles of the spray device are arranged in parallel in a line in substantially the same direction as the wire. Therefore, the arrangement width of the spray nozzle can be sprayed for each flight with the wire as the radius, and the spray efficiency can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

1 to 3 are views for explaining a remote-controlled helicopter according to a first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a plan view thereof, FIG. 2 is a side view thereof, and FIG. 3 is a view thereof. Perspective view,
FIG. 4 is a plan view showing a second embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 5 is a plan view for explaining a third embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 6 is a plan view showing a conventional helicopter. In the figure, 1 is a helicopter, 2 is a fuselage, 4 is a main rotor, 7 is a support bracket (rear of the fuselage), 8 is a wire,
13 is a spraying device (spraying device), and 15 is a spraying nozzle.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-55-25684 (JP, A) Actual development: S55-27189 (JP, U) JP-B 39-25328 (JP, B1)

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A remote-controlled helicopter having a rear part of an airframe connected to the ground by a wire that regulates a flight area, and equipped with a spraying device for spraying a spraying agent such as agricultural chemicals. The spraying nozzle discharging the spraying agent. The remote-controlled helicopter is characterized in that a plurality of spray nozzles are provided, and the spray nozzles are arranged in parallel below the main rotor and on a line substantially in the same direction as the wire.