Vietnamese scientist develops high-altitude patrol helicopter balloon

The research team’s lighter-than-air helicopter vehicle was granted a useful solution patent by the Intellectual Property Office in October 2024. This type of vehicle is also called a helicopter airship, combining the airship body and a multi-rotor device (or drone), creating a light air vehicle capable of helicopter flight.

The project to test produce a helicopter balloon to detect forest fires is divided into two phases, first is the trial production of a miniature model (3 m3), then the production of commercial products (100 m3).

In phase one, the group will focus on the coupling diagram, researching and manufacturing a 3 m3 miniature helicopter airship that meets the technical criteria: vertical take-off and landing, flight time (calm) of about 4 hours. , operating radius of 10 km, flight ceiling of 500 m, patrol flight speed of 18 km/h, maximum wind speed allowed to fly is 10 km/h. The device is equipped with a night camera with a resolution of 1920 x1080 pixels, can be controlled automatically or manually, and has 3-axis stabilization.

With commercial products, the technical parameters will be increased 3-4 times compared to the tested product.

Professor Nguyen Duc Cuong, head of the helicopter airship pilot production project, said that the idea of ​​hybridizing the airship body with multiple rotors has been around for a long time, but there is no solution to reduce the oscillation effect of multi-rotor devices, so is rigidly attached to the balloon body. Therefore, when controlling the trajectory, the entire body of the balloon must be tilted, requiring a multi-rotor device with high capacity. In 2022, American scientists proposed a ball joint connecting the balloon body and the multi-rotor device according to a pendulum diagram, creating favorable conditions for tilting control of the multi-rotor device.

VASA’s research team has improved by developing a multi-rotor device and a loading compartment (containing cameras) hanging under the airship body according to the diagram of two pendulums in series, helping to reduce the rotor’s capacity when controlling the flight, without requiring tilt the entire balloon and the loading compartment. “This is also an innovation that helped the research team receive a patent for a useful solution,” Professor Cuong shared.

Professor Nguyen Duc Cuong said that the helicopter balloon will be an effective assistant to the Forest Ranger force, replacing fixed watchtowers that can only detect fires within a 5 km radius. With heavy load capacity, low emissions and high automation, helicopters also have potential applications in agriculture (plant protection spraying, foliar fertilizer, seeding) and traffic monitoring support. , anti-smuggling. In particular, the ability to fly at night, not reflect radar or radiate heat, fly smoothly and fly high beyond the range of infantry fire gives this device great potential in military applications.

Dr. Mai Khanh, former Head of the System Design Department of the Rocket Institute, commented that this device inherits the advantages of drones: it is easy to manufacture and use, is equipped with GPS, and has good wind resistance when taking off and landing. Vertical wings, suspended flight, slow flight. The device also has the advantages of a balloon: it flies suspended, flies slowly, uses very little energy, is environmentally friendly, can fly for a long time, and carries a lot of weight.