The Scottish company behind a novel heavy-lift utility UAV that uses an internal combustion engine and hydraulic motors has now frozen design plans and is preparing for production following successful flight tests in Denmark.
With their weird, peaky torque curves, gasoline engines aren’t nearly responsive enough to keep a multicopter balanced against rapidly changing winds. Flowcopter’s solution to this problem is to use an internal combustion engine to drive a hydraulic transmission system that, in turn, spins the rotor blades.
The original goal was to develop a versatile Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) capable of six hours of continuous flight using just one tank of gasoline while carrying payloads of up to 150 kg (330 lb). The FC100, which recently completed successful flight trials at the Hans Christian Andersen Airport in Odense, Denmark, has a maximum take-off weight of 450 kg (992 lb) – including a 100 kg (220 lb) payload – and a range of 100 km (62 miles).
The FC100 offers a significantly lighter, more robust, and lower cost solution not only replacing the reliance on helicopters at the lower end, ferries at the higher end, but opening up new possibilities in logistics scheduling and essentially step-changing the Delivery Experience “DX” that can be offered to the end customer.
Flowcopter’s novel technology uses a lightweight hydraulic drive train already proven in harsh environments. The team have now moved past their prototype testing and have frozen the design to enter production.
This cutting-edge UAV is part of the initial production run of three, with one unit already sold to a major aerospace OEM. The next phase is underway to develop a heavy-lift multirotor capable of carrying a 200-kg (440-lb) payload, which will serve as the basis for future production runs.
Furthermore, plans for larger aircraft are in progress, with a variant designed to carry over 350 kg (771 lb) expected to be in development by the end of the year. Additionally, Flowcopter aims to obtain flight test authorization for a UK demo by June.
