CycloTech showcases its CycloRotor propulsion system at DroneX with first video of its technology demonstrator

After nine months of inten­sive test­ing, CycloTech were able to give those attend­ing last week’s DroneX Trade Show & Con­fer­ence the chance to watch a video of the first free-flight of its tech­nol­o­gy demon­stra­tor.

The video was show­cased at the event, which was held at Lon­don’s ExCeL from Octo­ber 5th-6th, and includ­ed a keynote from CycloTech’s CEO, Hans-Georg Kin­sky. The com­pa­ny’s tech­nol­o­gy is focused on its CycloRo­tor propul­sion sys­tem, which com­bines the advan­tages of ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (VTOL) with those of effi­cient for­ward flight with­out being depen­dent on wings.

Kin­sky said: “This is the moment we have been wait­ing for a long time. There­by we have proven this tech­nol­o­gy is usable as a VTOL-dri­ve. With this free-flight, we have suc­ceed­ed in tak­ing an impor­tant step towards com­mer­cial­iz­ing this tech­nol­o­gy. We have proven the capa­bil­i­ty of this propul­sion sys­tem.”

Locat­ed in Aus­tria, CycloTech are now able to use their demon­stra­tor as a tech­nol­o­gy plat­form for show­ing fur­ther capa­bil­i­ties and expan­sion stages and has said about €10 mil­lion will be invest­ed by a pri­vate investor with­in the next month.

Part of the var­ied capa­bil­i­ties of this propul­sion tech­nol­o­gy are air taxis and long-dis­tance drones and Kin­sky added: “Our rotor is one of the most excit­ing projects in avi­a­tion and has the poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tionise the propul­sion tech­nol­o­gy for ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing.”

Talks with drone man­u­fac­tur­ers about strate­gic part­ner­ships are already in process and at the moment, CycloTech is work­ing with an inter­na­tion­al logis­tics group and car­ry­ing out sys­tem inves­ti­ga­tions which aim to use the rotor tech­nol­o­gy for car­go drones.

Among the test­ed con­fig­u­ra­tions, some rely sole­ly on the Cyclo­gy­ro rotors for pro­vid­ing lift and thrust, while oth­ers use com­bi­na­tions with pro­peller sys­tems and fixed wings. These will be pre­sent­ed to the pub­lic in a short time.

The com­pa­ny is also work­ing on a way to make its rotor tech­nol­o­gy applic­a­ble as an aux­il­iary sys­tem for Unmanned Aer­i­al Vehi­cles (UAVs). Opti­mi­sa­tions of the dri­ve­train com­po­nents and endurance are planned for 2022, with the propul­sion sys­tem ide­al­ly used first in this sec­tor before mov­ing to the grow­ing urban air mobil­i­ty mar­ket.

Based on the sim­u­lat­ed results, Kin­sky assumes it will be pos­si­ble to ‘increase the per­for­mance by 20 per cent and reduce the weight by 20 per cent until 2022.’

He said: “The cli­mate pro­tec­tion debate is absolute­ly push­ing in our direc­tion because avi­a­tion has to become emis­sion-free too. The required reduc­tions of noise, CO2 and NOX emis­sion can­not be reached with con­ven­tion­al tech­nolo­gies and con­cepts.

“Not even one of the boom­ing air taxi projects is designed with­out an elec­tri­cal dri­ve. For drones, the sit­u­a­tion is sim­i­lar – this is play­ing in our hands. We are focussing just on the civ­il use of drones and there is a big demand in logis­tics, sur­veil­lance, and inspec­tion of pow­er lines, com­ing from the indus­try. What’s lim­it­ing us is the lack of reg­u­la­tions.”

Because of their topol­o­gy and struc­ture, Cyclo­gy­ro rotors are per­fect­ly suit­able for being used as a pure­ly elec­tri­cal dri­ve vari­ant. The com­pa­ny assumes that only emis­sion-free drones and air taxis will be allowed in urban areas and is there­fore align­ing their whole sys­tem archi­tec­ture with that.