A VTOL aircraft (1), including: a fuselage (2) for transporting passengers and/or load; a front wing (3) attached to the fuselage (2); an aft wing (4) attached to the fuselage (2), behind the front wing (3) in a direction of forward flight (FF); a right connecting beam (5a) and a left connecting beam (5b), which connecting beams (5a, 5b) structurally connect the front wing (3) and the aft wing (4), which connecting beams (5a, 5b) are spaced apart from the fuselage (2); and at least two propulsion units (6) on each one of the connecting beams (5a, 5b). The propulsion units (6) include at least one propeller (6b, 6b) and at least one motor (6a) driving the propeller (6b, 6b), preferably an electric motor, and are arranged with their respective propeller axis in an essentially vertical orientation (z).

Various embodiments of an airfoil and machines with airfoils are disclosed. The airfoils include a thicker leading airfoil portion and a thinner trailing airfoil portion. In one embodiment, the leading airfoil portion is formed by bending a body of the airfoil back toward itself. In another embodiment, the leading airfoil portion has a solid geometry and includes two elliptic surfaces. To prevent detachment of airflow, the leading airfoil portion includes at least two arc portions or surfaces that act to direct the airflow down to the trailing airfoil portion in a manner that stabilizes vortexes that may form in the region of changing thickness.

An unmanned aerial vehicle includes a fuselage body and a lift mechanism. The lift mechanism includes a rotor blade assembly and a rotary driving member and defines an axis of rotation. The lift being mechanism is coupled to the fuselage body. The rotary driving member is configured to controllably rotate the rotor blade assembly about the axis of rotation. The rotor blade assembly includes at least one rotor blade. The at least one rotor blade including a vortex generator defined along an upper surface of the rotor blade.

Rotor noise cancellation through the use of mechanical means for a personal aerial drone vehicle. Active noise cancellation is achieved by creating an antiphase amplitude wave by modulation of the propeller blades, by utilizing embedded magnets through an electromagnetic coil encircling the propeller blades. A noise level sensor signals the rotor control system to adjust the frequency of the electromagnetic field surrounding the rotor and control the speed of the rotor. An additional method comprises of incorporating a phase lock loop within the control system configured to determine the frequencies corresponding to the rotors and generate corrective audio signals to achieve active noise cancellation.

A rotorcraft including a fuselage, one or more motor-driven rotors for vertical flight, and a control system. The motors drive the one or more rotors in either of two directions of rotation to provide for flight in either an upright or an inverted orientation. An orientation sensor is used to control the primary direction of thrust, and operational instructions and gathered information are automatically adapted based on the orientation of the fuselage with respect to gravity. The rotors are configured with blades that invert to conform to the direction of rotation.

A reciprocating lift and thrust system include at least an airfoil and a reciprocating driver configured to produce a reciprocating motion of the airfoil. The system may further include a control unit to change or maintain a suitable angle of attack of the airfoil for lift or thrust as well as to facilitate the cyclic control of the flying vehicle driven by the reciprocating system. The lift and thrust system may be deployed in a module that includes at least two reciprocating airfoils (RAs) and is configured to substantially cancel out the inertia forces and moments associated with the individual airfoils. The reciprocating driver maybe, but not limited to, a mechanical, electromagnetic, electrical, or hydraulic driver. The embodiments of the subject invention provide novel and advantageous RA-driven aircraft, RA-driven flying motor vehicles, and RA-driven watercraft.

A motor includes a bottom and a top opposite to the bottom. The bottom is a mounting side of the motor and the bottom is inclined relative to a rotation axis of the motor.

An aerial vehicle may be equipped with propellers having reconfigurable geometries. Such propellers may have blade tips or other features that may be adjusted or reconfigured while the aerial vehicle is operating, on any basis. Propellers having reconfigurable blade tips joined to blade roots may cause the blade tips to be aligned with the blade roots, or substantially perpendicular to the blade roots, e.g., in order to counter adverse effects of tip vortices, or at any intervening angle. The propellers may be reconfigured at predetermined times during operation of an aerial vehicle, or upon sensing one or more operational characteristics or environmental conditions, as may be desired or required.

A battery-powered aerial vehicle has a central controller, one or more propelling modules, and one or more battery assemblies for powering at least the one or more propelling modules. The battery assemblies are at a distance away from the central controller for reducing electromagnetic interference to the central controller. In some embodiments, the aerial vehicle is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) having a center unit, a plurality of rotor units circumferentially uniformly distributed about and coupled to the center unit, and one or more battery assemblies. The central controller is in the center unit and the propelling modules are in respective rotor units. Each battery assembly is in a rotor unit in proximity with the propelling module thereof. In some embodiments, the central controller also has a battery-power balancing circuit for balancing the power consumption rates of the one or more battery assemblies.

An unmanned aerial vehicle, a method for detecting a flight state thereof, and a wearable device (500) are disclosed. The method comprises: disposing a propeller operation state collector (302) for collecting an operation state signal of a propeller (301) on at least one support arm (303) of the UAV (S101); acquiring the operation state signal of the propeller (301) collected by the propeller operation state collector (302) (S102); processing the operation state signal to obtain an operation state of the propeller (301) (S103); and determining the flight state of the UAV according to the operation state of the propeller (301) (S104). By disposing the propeller operation state collector (302) on the support arm (303) of the UAV to collect the operation state signal of the propeller (301), and then calculating the flight state of the UAV according to the operation state signal, better flight control of the UAV can be achieved by making use of the detected flight state of the UAV, and an desired flight trajectory can be obtained, thereby improving the controllability and safety during the flight of the UAV.