Ukrainian Drone Builders Provide Update

In 2022 we received a request for support from a team of drone builders in the Ukraine. They are now using the Flight Stand 15 to test their drone's motors and propellers. This is an update we received from them in January 2023.

Please note: text and photos are posted with permission from the Ukrainian team.

"Dear Tyto Robotics team,

I represent a small team of drone makers in Ukraine. I personally am a soldier in the Army of Ukraine and I'm an end user of the drone.

ukraine drone soldier

It took a while to deliver Flight Stand 15 to Ukraine (due to war the logistics is pretty hard now).

The biggest challenge for us is to validate motors and propellers quality as bought parts from China. This is important for drone stability in the air (if there are malfunctioning motors/propellers, drone crashes heavily causing 1-2 thousands dollars repairment). We have lost many days and money due to such malfunctions.

Working with the FS15 you sent us allowed us to find a “golden sample” of propellers and measure vibration data. So any new pair is being installed and validated against the “golden sample” data. As an example please see how we identified cracked propeller using the FS15

cracked drone propeller

(Imagine what would happen if that one broke in the air).

Another quality improvement - the fixture allowed us to run multi hour load tests for propellers to assure they withstand at least 2 hours of 60% load before installing them to the drone.

And the 3rd quality improvement was kind of unexpected - FS15 allowed us to test real LiOn battery capacity :) So we now shall not simply believe guys saying “oh, relax, our battery is 30 A/h” - we can REALLY test them. 

thrust test stand

Your help allowed us to develop a streamline process of validating motors and propellers which lead to a well-balanced, well-controlled heavy drone manufacturing process.

Moreover - we were able to attract attention of some UK volonteers which produced a short film we are planning to use to raise money to keep making even more drones.

As a final note - UAVs are now the key game changer in this war and we as people of Ukraine are grateful for Canada's help - especially when it comes to such team-to-team relations in addition to our governments friendship !"

4 Responses

Richard

November 17, 2023

Word plays often work in marketing if the target market increases it name recognition of the marketer in appreciation of its linguistic cleverness, therefore, I’d like to suggest that tyto Robotics rename its FS-15 flightstand as the First Tyto propeller tynamometer, and copyright the name.

Richard

November 17, 2023

Hasit been considered to position your new testbed as a dynamometer for propeller and battery performance in a controlled environment that can be configured to emulate field performance accurately

Lauren Nagel

August 28, 2023

Hi Richard,
Good question. Have you seen any data on how the performance of toroidal propellers compares to regular propellers for drones? We’ve seen impressive data for marine applications, but not aviation.
- Lauren at Tyto Robotics

Richard

August 28, 2023

Have you considered using the new MIT designed toroidal propellers that are quieter, more powerful, and improve fuel economy?

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