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 The University of Oslo team built the large unmanned aerial
vehicle (UAV), over an 18 month period. It contains 13 propellers
and eight hexacopters powered by a total of 48 motors that reside on
a frame built from aluminum and plywood.
Last October it broke the world record by lifting a payload of 61
kilograms (134lb 7.6oz) into the air and holding it there for 37
seconds, elevated to a height of at least one meter at all times.
The record attempt was far from easy, with the drone unable to lift
its initial payload of 73 kilograms and having to reduce its weight.
Team member Kine Gjerstad Eide told Reuters high winds almost forced
the abandonment of the attempt, made in front of a large crowd of
fellow students, and attended by Guinness representatives.
"We had to try three times and then the third try we made it," she
told Reuters. "We flew for about 37 seconds with a payload of 61
kilos and the whole 37 seconds we had to be one meter above the
ground."
 The megacopter was piloted by Henning Pedersen and Dan Richard
Isdahl Eng.
"It has 48 motors, 48 propellers, and those 48 propellers are
grouped in eight groups and every group there are six motors and
those motors are exactly the same speed," explained Pedersen. "Then
we have a flight controller with eight outputs and those eight
outputs are controlled individually. So the flight controller thinks
it only has eight motors; and then we have 24 batteries, so each of
those eight collections have three batteries each that they share."
He added: "We researched the motors. We found one motor could lift
three-and-a-half kilos, and we multiply that by 48 and we got a
maximum lifting power of over 150 kilos. So it was kind of just
multiplication, basically."
The team is hoping to break its own record this summer. "We have
been lifting 78 kilos in testing before that, so it's able to do
more, so we are going to do more as well," said team member Krister
Borge.
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Its ultimate aim is to rival the likes of Hungarian prototype Flike,
Singapore's Snowstorm multicopter drone, and the British-made
Hoverbike, by transporting people. One potential use for a vehicle
of this sort would be to rescue someone trapped on a roof, says the
team.
The team has so far failed to persuade the Norwegian authorities to
allow them to fly a person inside the craft's structure, but hope to
get the decision overturned.
"The technology (to fly a person) exists today so it's a question of
time before the authorities say this is the future, and say yes,"
said Borge.
Eide says the researchers hope to inspire hobbyists to build their
own devices using off-the-shelf components like theirs. "Until now
things that are flying haven't been made by normal people, you had
to go into a huge company and it's really expensive and all of
that," she said. "Now we're seeing the prices going down to a level
where people can actually afford it, so it's really important that
people can use their creativity and come up with something new and
maybe this is just the start."
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