{"id":24258,"date":"2026-10-18T04:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T04:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news678.top\/?p=24258"},"modified":"2026-10-18T04:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T04:10:08","slug":"this-compact-single-propeller-drone-hovers-using-just-one-motor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news678.top\/?p=24258","title":{"rendered":"This Compact Single Propeller Drone Hovers Using Just One Motor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.techeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/17203407\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone.jpg\" alt=\"One Motor Single Propeller Drone\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\"\/><br \/>Joshua Bird set out to build a flying drone small enough to fit comfortably in a room without the bulk that usually comes with single-rotor designs. Most approaches either rely on a second rotor for balance or force the machine to grow large so its blades can produce usable control forces. He wanted neither, so he kept the hardware to one motor and one propeller sitting on a compact finned body, then solved the control problem through rapid changes in blade angle instead of extra hardware.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-261674\"\/><br \/><iframe title=\"I Built a Drone With Only One Motor\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ndftcft6XhU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><noscript><iframe title=\"I Built a Drone With Only One Motor\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ndftcft6XhU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/noscript><br \/>\nSteering is accomplished using a movable hub whose blades can tilt as the motor speed changes, and just when you think about it, at the right point in each rotation, a slight acceleration or slowdown begins to leave one blade behind the rest. This lag causes one blade to tilt up and the other to tilt down, giving the impression that there is more lift on one side of the circle. Getting this timing just perfect is the key to directing the entire thing in any direction you choose without the need for a second motor or separate control surfaces.<\/p>\n<div class=\"aawp\">\n<div class=\"aawp-product aawp-product--horizontal\" data-aawp-product-asin=\"B0FJ1QH15P\" data-aawp-product-id=\"265396\" data-aawp-tracking-id=\"tec02e-20\" data-aawp-product-title=\"DJI Neo 2 Motion Fly More Combo With RC Motion 3 &amp; Goggles N3 | Stable Transmission With Digital Transceiver 4K Drone for Beginners FPV Flying 3 Batteries\">\n<div class=\"aawp-product__thumb\">\n<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aawp-product__image\" src=\"https:\/\/m.media-amazon.com\/images\/I\/413k5ERjsvL._SL160_.jpg\" alt=\"DJI Neo 2 Motion Fly More Combo With RC Motion 3 &amp; Goggles N3 | Stable Transmission With Digital...\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"aawp-product__content\">\n<p>            DJI Neo 2 Motion Fly More Combo With RC Motion 3 &amp; Goggles N3 | Stable Transmission With Digital&#8230;        <\/p>\n<div class=\"aawp-product__description\">\n<ul>\n<li>Lightweight &amp; Portable Design &#8211; Weighing just 151g [9] and C0 certified, this compact drone features full-coverage propeller guards for safer&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Palm Takeoff &amp; Landing [1], Gesture Control [2] &#8211; Enjoy easy palm takeoff and landing, plus intuitive gesture controls for hands-free operation and&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Smooth &amp; Reliable Tracking &#8211; ActiveTrack [3] keeps your subject in focus, while Apple Watch lets you view live feed, check flight status, or use voice&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.techeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/17210230\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone-1.jpg\" alt=\"One Motor Single Propeller Drone\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\"\/><br \/>\nThe early versions had multiple hinges, but later he switched to a single pivot and made the entire device much larger, more than half the size of the first one. To counteract centrifugal force, he fastened stainless steel washers at right angles to the blades, ensuring that they remained sturdy even when the contraption spun its head off. To keep the entire assembly spinning freely, they installed ball bearings and a thrust bearing, and they printed the parts in a highly durable plastic.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.techeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/17210240\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone-2.jpg\" alt=\"One Motor Single Propeller Drone\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\"\/><br \/>Ordinary drone speed controllers could not keep up. They sense motor speed only through electrical feedback and lose track once the required adjustments climb past about fifty per second. Bird wanted something more powerful, so they went to a Moteus controller, which reads the motor shaft position directly from a magnetic encoder. This allowed them to ramp up the system to 300 accelerations per second before it went out of sync. Still, timing was and remains a big issue.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.techeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/17210249\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone-3.jpg\" alt=\"One Motor Single Propeller Drone\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\"\/><br \/>When the machine is spinning at roughly 20,000 times per minute, a one-millisecond delay equals 20 degrees of rotation and throws the blade angles off, making it a significant struggle. The first time they set it up, they utilized a separate microcontroller to read the encoder, combine the flight orders, and then output the response after a millisecond. Then he rewrote the firmware so that the flight controller communicates directly with the motor controller and calculates the commands itself, and wouldn\u2019t you know it, it reduced the lag, eliminated some weight, and saved some money by eliminating that extra board.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.techeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/17210258\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone-4.jpg\" alt=\"One Motor Single Propeller Drone\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\"\/><br \/>Flight tests began on a shaky note, with the drone repeatedly crashing. You could feel a strange vibration at 160 hz as the blades began spinning quickly; stiffening the blades really helped to alleviate the problem. Even after getting rid of the vibrations, the drone continued to drift off because it had no notion which way it was facing in the room. Adding an infrared beacon to the wall that the drone could detect with a sensor helped to resolve this issue. Once he figured things out, takeoff became much more predictable, altitude levels remained constant, and stick input produced the predicted tilts. We also developed a unique high-speed camera with a flashing light to obtain a better look at the blades in motion, which allowed us to fine-tune the timing and hub shape even further. This little rotor is barely six inches across and spins at almost 20,000 rpm per minute, making it one of the smallest and fastest articulated rotors he\u2019s flown on one of these types of drones to yet. The body\u2019s anti-torque fins keep it from spinning out of control, although it still turns a little on its own.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.techeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/17210307\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone-5.jpg\" alt=\"One Motor Single Propeller Drone\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\"\/><br \/>If you want to see how he put it all together, the project files are available on GitHub. They include all of the CAD models as well as the modified flight and motor code, which anyone may examine or try to replicate. The next part of the project will be to replace the infrared beacon with a basic line sensor that can lock onto commonplace objects in a room, allowing us to eliminate the requirement for a special marking and fly the drone outside. For the time being, however, the drone remains indoors, where the single engine, hinged hub, and extremely accurate speed control appear to keep it level and responsive after much tuning.<br \/><span>[Source]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> This Compact Single Propeller Drone Hovers Using Just One Motor<br \/>\n<br \/>#Compact #Single #Propeller #Drone #Hovers #Motor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joshua Bird set out to build a flying drone small enough to fit comfortably in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1210,1496,14762,12501,14761,274],"class_list":["post-24258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","tag-compact","tag-drone","tag-hovers","tag-motor","tag-propeller","tag-single"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone.jpg",960,640,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone.jpg",640,427,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone.jpg",960,640,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone.jpg",960,640,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone.jpg",960,640,false],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/one-motor-single-propeller-drone-540x340.jpg",540,340,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/news678.top\/?author=1"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/news678.top\/?cat=8\" rel=\"category\">Tech<\/a>","tag_info":"Tech","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}