50 UVD | Orthodrone Pivot is typical for a drone of similar size. While many off-the-shelf gimbal systems have fairly big, heavy motors, Orthodrone is implementing “rather small” motors from Swiss manufacturer Maxon with Orthodrone’s own nöPOS control board and a custom drive system, creating a stabilisation technology that weighs no more than that of a mid-sized singlecamera gimbal, Klusak notes. Sensing the motion to which the servos react to stabilise the fuselage is a set of IMUs for which fast response is much more important than the low drift required for accurate navigation. Addressing another category of use cases, Klusak says the Pivot concept solves what he regards as one of the biggest issues for heavy lift drones: the shift in the centre of gravity when the UAV picks up a load, particularly an underslung one. “With a Pivot system, you carry the load in the centre of the system, and it will fly very similarly, whether it is empty or fully loaded.” He also sees an application for it in eVTOL air taxis, particularly those of a conventional multicopter configuration, which he considers likely to be prone to inducing motion sickness in passengers when subject to rough air, including gusty winds. Using Pivot technology to control fuselage attitude, it is possible to control the direction in which occupants feel acceleration forces. “It can make sure you just feel it pressing you into the seat. Then it’s just like gravity increasing a little, and we are all OK with that.” Development challenges Klusak and his team faced a number of challenges in creating the Pivot technology, not least of which was developing a control scheme for a vehicle subject to complex coupled dynamics between the stabilised fuselage and the pivoting propulsion system. They also had to undertake a weightreduction process for most of the key components. For example, while it was easy to find electric motors with the power-to-weight ratio they were looking for, motor controllers fitting their specifications proved elusive. “A big part of the job was downsizing the controllers, and we ended up redoing some printed circuit boards (PCBs). We’re a small team and we were very lucky with the talent we have acquired, so we have been able to do things like that in-house,” he says. Having a core developer of ArduPilot on board has also proven valuable, Klusak says, enabling the team to determine how to use it to control more of the vehicle’s functionality directly. “We started by running many of our systems on a companion computer, but now we are at a point where we are able to do more through-scripting and just run it on the autopilot, which is a great step for us because it needs less hardware.” Proof of concept The process of building and testing prototypes was spurred by the Covid pandemic when travel restrictions and lockdowns made it difficult for the team to complete in-person fieldwork. In November 2020, Klusak held a team meeting to introduce the idea of developing a UAV, and he recalls that no one had heard of the idea behind Pivot. Despite Klusak’s worry that someone would tell the spatial data scientist to stick to his maps, the team thought the idea could work, and they were so enthusiastic that they built a proof-ofconcept vehicle by the end of December. The 4 kg machine was not pretty, he recalls, but it flew around the office October/November 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Orthodrone developed key electronics on its own PCBs, including the nöPOS control and drive system for Maxon’s motors The development process saw the construction of several prototypes, this being the MK-III version that closely resembles the production-ready MK-V
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