We are very pleased to report that a notification has been received from the EPO that the agency has approved the granting of a patent for the technology that Flygildi is developing with its Silent Flyer drone.
Silent Flyer uses flapping wings and tail for lift, propulsion and navigation, in a similar way as birds do. Eleven degrees of freedom in the wings and tail, coupled with unique wing design, allow for a high-level of manoeuvrability and bird-like flight behaviour (independent real-time control for flapping, tilting the wings, moving them back and forth, and in and out for morphing) at speeds similar to real birds. It has a mass of 1.2 kg and a wingspan of 1.3 m. It can be launched by hand or from a catapult and transported in a small case as the wings can be folded to the body of the bird for easy transport. The Silent Flyer is equipped with positioning and communication equipment for high precision flight trajectory, remote control and pre-defined autonomous flying. It carries a high-quality camera, on-board computing and data storing. It provides a max payload of 200 gr to carry application specific instrumentation. Gliding and soaring, like natural birds do, will allow a max flying time of up to 50 min, compared to the 25-30 min possible for existing small multi-rotor UAV commercially available and will be less noisy than a conventional multi-rotor UAV.
The number of degrees of freedom is equal to the total number of independent displacements or aspects of motion. A machine may operate in two or three dimensions but have more than three degrees of freedom. The term is widely used to define the motion capabilities of robots.
Furthermore, the Silent Flyer does not need to use a propeller or a jet engine to fly, which brings the acoustic signature to a very low level and renders the UAV near-silent. Moreover, the bird-like shape and flight yield a stealthy UAV. Lastly, the bird-like UAV can perform several modes of flight that are not attainable by current UAVs, such as powered flight, gliding, and hovering, as well as vertical take-off and landing. The Silent Flyer can fly autonomously. These features make the Silent Flyer a unique UAV.