Energetic design of a new autogyro aircraft with cyclorotors with possibility of energy harvesting

Autogyros are important for their maneuverability and operative flexibility. This paper defines a new autogyro configuration based on cyclorotors placed on the side of the cabin, near the centre of gravity of the aircraft, and a pushing propeller with horizontal axis. The used cyclorotor has an innovative high lift-resistive configuration that can maximize vertical lift, vertical propulsion and energy harvesting. The resulting aircraft has really breakthrough features. It can produce different configurations such as VTOL operation by using the cyclorotors for propulsion by mean electric motors, cogeneration during flight because of the autorotation of the cyclorotors and onboard energy harvesting by the reciprocal use of the motors as generators, fixed wing flight such as an old multi-wing aircraft of the pioneering era of aeronautics. The preliminary design process by the fundamental laws of basic physics is presented. An effective optimization of energetic equation of the resulting aircraft has been produced according to a second principle analysis of a theoretical model of the aircraft. The adopted method has been EMIPS that considers the resources required to move vehicle and payload to focus the analysis on the energetic inefficiencies at vehicle level.