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Inexpensive, light and efficient propulsion system for unmanned aerial vehicles and light aircraft
Integrated Propulsion System (IPS) that is based on a tangential gas turbine that is structurally a part of the propulsion system's centrifugal compressor, wherein the gas turbine's combustion chambers with nozzles are placed to rotate around a larger radius circle at a supersonic circumferential speed, and the fan blades are placed to rotate around a smaller radius circle at a subsonic circumferential speed, therefore increasing the efficiency of the propulsion system.
There are two main types of aircraft engines: jet and reciprocating. Piston engines are generally used only on very small general-aviation airplanes and some unmanned aerial vehicles. Low efficiency of piston engines is around 15% - 25%, thus contributing to increased fuel consumption. The need to use high-quality gasoline with the addition of antiknock agents, or diesel fuel with the addition of ignition promoters, leads to an increased cost of operation and environmental pollution by decomposition products of antiknock agents and promoters (lead, manganese, nickel, nitrogen oxides). Vibration, uneven torque, mechanical stress require a margin of safety for piston engine parts. The production of piston engines requires precision parts and is therefore expensive. Aircraft gas turbines and ramjet engines are widely used propulsion systems with excellent figures of specific thrust and specific fuel consumption per unit of thrust per hour. The design of ramjet engine (aero thermodynamic duct), a form of airbreathing jet engine that uses the forward motion of the engine to produce thrust, is the simplest among all thermal engines. The efficiency of ramjet engines is the highest among all other thermal engines. However, their main disadvantage is they produce no thrust when stationary (no ram air) and are most efficient only at supersonic speeds. Therefore, ramjet-powered vehicles require an assisted take-off, and are pre-accelerated to the speed of sound using turbojet engines in aircraft, or using a rocket booster in missile. A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine, consisting of a rotating gas compressor, a combustor and a compressor-driving turbine. The thermodynamic cycle of a gas turbine engine consists of atmospheric air flows through the compressor that brings it to higher pressure; energy is then added by injecting fuel into the air and igniting it so that the combustion generates a high-temperature flow; this high-temperature pressurized gas enters a turbine, producing a shaft work output in the process, used to drive the compressor; the unused energy is dispersed in the exhaust gases. The manufacturing cost of gas turbines is higher than that of other thermal engines. There are axial, radial, tangential and transverse (lateral) types of gas turbines. Tangential jet turbines are of greatest interest because they can operate without rotor blades. In tangential jet turbines, the torque on the rotor is created by a reactive force of the tangentially directed outflow jet from rotating nozzles.
Integrated Propulsion System (IPS) is based on a tangential gas turbine integrated with a centrifugal compressor. The proposed propulsion system weighs only 1/20 the piston engine and 1/10 the turbine engine with a fuel consumption of only 1/3 the piston engine and 1/5 the turbine engine of an equal power output.
The market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) is fast-growing. Due to the high efficiency, the fuel consumption of an IPS UAV weighing about 0.6 tons will be no more than 5 kg per hour (in economy mode). With a fuel reserve of 120 kg, the UAV will be able to stay in air for 24 hours or more. The demand for inexpensive kamikaze drones (loitering munition) proved to be extremely high as the war in Ukraine shows. Equipping flying munitions with disposable super-cheap IPS can be super profitable. In the times of peace, the light aircraft markets of Asia, Africa and South America are filled with used aircraft from Europe, Japan and North America. However, in the absence of a service infrastructure and the need of high-quality fuel, the operation of uneconomical used aircraft is too expensive for residents of the developing countries. Therefore, the market niche of low-budget and unpretentious aircraft still remains unfulfilled, and, with an adequate supply, can absorb thousands of such aircraft annually. Our wholly-owned subsidiary, Alternate Dimension Space Technologies, Inc., is currently developing a multifunctional, long-range, inexpensive UAV 'Avenger' based on the IPS.
