Leonardo da Vinci is famous for the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. But did you know that he sketched a design for an aircraft back in 1480? Due to a lack of suitable materials, the polymath never built or tested the helicopter-like object. Luckily, some engineers transformed these sketches into a real flying machine, called the Crimson Spin or the Da Vinci drone.
A group of engineers used da Vinci’s sketches to design a working drone for a flight design contest via CNET. Dubbed as the Crimson Spin, the device is a small, unmanned quadcopter drone with wings inspired by da Vinci’s aerial screw design. They used the concept of Archimedes’ screw to push against the air to obtain flight.
What is this Da Vinci drone all about?
Modern Materials
The drone consists of four corkscrew-shaped wings made of plastic. Instead of having someone hand-spin them as da Vinci designed, batteries power these wings and electric motors. Like the drones we have today, this device relies on small changes to propeller speed to tilt one direction or the other. As seen in da Vinci’s drawings, creating a single-shaft design would have been far more complicated. It would require some of the technology used in modern helicopters.
Austin Prete, part of the project’s engineering team, built the Crimson Spin for his master’s degree. He tested the device over several short journeys. Last week, he presented the first video of the aircraft flying during the Transformative Vertical Flight conference. The conference featured a unique aircraft that can take off vertically like a helicopter and then fly horizontally like an airplane. Companies like Airbus, Kitty Hawk, and Transcend Air hope to revolutionize shipping and take people around in air taxis.
Prete, a graduate student at the University of Maryland aerospace engineering department, told CNET that he was surprised that the device worked. The drone creates a twisting vortex of Air on the edge of each wing that corkscrews downward and produces upward thrust.
Unique Aerodynamics
Prete said they might not be flying around on a 530-year-old helicopter model. However, this project succeeded. Through VTOL or vertical take-off and landing, aircraft have gained interest in their potential to deliver packages. The device can also be used as an aerial taxi.
The novel aerodynamics of Crimson Spin solves a few of the many challenges faced by VTOLs. It produces less downwash and would likely be quieter than traditional propellers.
This functioning aerial screw is a small drone about the size of a DJI you might find at Best Buy or Amazon. But Prete believes it could be improved using geometry optimizations and investigations into the performance in different flight regimes. Further, it may scale up to carry a passenger in the future. While he won’t be working on it anymore, Prete assumes that research may continue at the University of Maryland as long as there is interest and funding support.
Prete said that the Crimson Spin could be a practical hover machine capable of potentially scaling up to human-carrying capability. However, at the moment, he doesn’t see it being used in modern company designs. Extensive research needs to be conducted on his creation’s function, reliability, and performance.
CNET cited the da Vinci drone project as an excellent example of the current technology moving away from aircraft design. Even though it’s uncertain a 15th-century flying corkscrew will deliver an Amazon package anytime soon.
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