I am the inventor of the "Self Contained Ion Powered Aircraft". It is covered by US Patent No. 10,119,527, legally in effect since 2014. It is the first and only solely ion propelled aircraft ever fly to with an onboard power supply. It flies for about 2 minutes, takes off vertically, and does not need large wings of a bungee cord for assistance.
There is an almost endless string of news reports mostly originating from a Nature Magazine article produced by Barrett and his students incorrectly claiming that they are the first in history to fly any type of ion propelled device with onboard power.
Since my invention was widely published on Google in early 2016 by the US Patent office, it was one of the first images on Google for anyone that might type "ion" and "aircraft." I find it hard to believe therefore, that they were not aware of my patent. I can only assume that they were relying on the equations as written in their paper, that indicated that their craft was, as they essentially stated, "at the limit of what can be done with current technology." In other words, they did not think my VTOL ion propelled aircraft predating theirs was possible.
Here is the website for my invention with video footage of it in flight, a list of official observers/demonstrations, a link to the US patent, and lots of clear cut verifiable information.
Website:
www.electronairllc.orgOne of the Videos:
Very cool.
Here is the problem, commonly known ideas and technology, even things which had been patented before and gone into the public domain are being stolen in what amounts to a large scale organized global theft of everything that can be stolen. In the case of IP, many patents which never should have been, are being granted because of lack of manpower.
Also everything on blogs or anywhere besides official documents effectively never happened and is fair game for theft (via its patenting when its well known and commonly used and shouldn't be patentable).
Or theft of ideas, important online blog posts or discussions totally being stolen, and their ideas being put into academic papers with no credit being given to the actual authors.
No matter how well known or original one's work is, or how plugged into the business world one's efforts are, or aren't, their very existence in the so called 'real' world of technology attribution and patent awarding and money making, where things are seen as "mattering" is nil under this system unless you're part of it.
Faculty and students at top schools are invariably going to by default be believed when they claim to have invented some 'breakthrough' and get credit for everything they claim, even if they are old ideas or have some hidden issue and don't work. People who realize what they're doing often look the other way because of the abysmal situation in some countries, and polarization of other battles which aren't of any relevance to this issue.
There is an important ethical issue here. Schools shouldn't become schools in scamming, they should be places of scientific learning and rigor. Being a student or similar, no matter how much pressure they think they are under, shouldn't become a virtual license to misappropriate others work as ones own.
Well, there are tethers holding it there. Looks hella unstable otherwise (look how it wobbles before reaching height), but what do you expect, hover controls are complicated, and I'm guessing the thrusters aren't region controlled?
No electrical connection through the tethers, then? What's used for battery?
Tim
Putting the payload on an efficient wing such as that used on sailplanes reduces the thrust required by a factor of ten, over that required for a vertical lift. A typical human-rated sailplane only requires about 15kg of thrust to maintain level flight in still air. Plus it's going somewhere instead of just hovering.
I am the inventor of the "Self Contained Ion Powered Aircraft". It is covered by US Patent No. 10,119,527, legally in effect since 2014. It is the first and only solely ion propelled aircraft ever fly to with an onboard power supply. It flies for about 2 minutes, takes off vertically, and does not need large wings of a bungee cord for assistance.
There is an almost endless string of news reports mostly originating from a Nature Magazine article produced by Barrett and his students incorrectly claiming that they are the first in history to fly any type of ion propelled device with onboard power.
Since my invention was widely published on Google in early 2016 by the US Patent office, it was one of the first images on Google for anyone that might type "ion" and "aircraft." I find it hard to believe therefore, that they were not aware of my patent. I can only assume that they were relying on the equations as written in their paper, that indicated that their craft was, as they essentially stated, "at the limit of what can be done with current technology." In other words, they did not think my VTOL ion propelled aircraft predating theirs was possible.
Here is the website for my invention with video footage of it in flight, a list of official observers/demonstrations, a link to the US patent, and lots of clear cut verifiable information.
Rather more stable than my most basic experiment (from easily available web sources), due to much lower and wider profile. Mine definitely needed the tethers or it would flip immediately. It looks as if yours would too as soon as it had space to do so and no tethers.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/ionic-lifters-has-anyone-else-around-here-build-one/msg1435254/#msg1435254
What part have you patented? The on-board power supply? Lifters have been around for donkeys years. My replica of an established web design was made in 2006.
Hi Tim,
You are right, hover controls are much harder than keeping a glider stable. It takes serious attention to weight in this case, and one has to be really careful of power losses as well.
The craft in this video has 2, 110mAh lipos on top of the center mast above the circuit there.
The external power supplies that other people have been using tend to weigh almost a kg for every gram of model lifted. I had to increase the efficiency and power to weight ratio by a crazy amount to get it to take off. I have been working on the project for over 19 years so it evolved to become very lightweight and relatively efficient. The patent is really for an interdependent system, both electrical and physical. I have done most everything a bit differently than other similar devices in order to make it possible. If you look at the patent No. 10,119,527, it explains a lot of the details that are different. It was way harder than you might expect to get it to carry the power supply.
Thanks!
Ethan