MTS electric skyboard aircraft is a concept that has been worked on for 2 years. Its performance is quite unique in that it gives thrust without displacement or use of external magnets, nor does it use centrifugal force or even rotary movement. It quite simply levitates using internal oscillating magnetic force. There’s no altitude restriction since the propulsion is not governed by the amount of air to push against. The noise levels are quite low since it is magnetic; in fact the cooling fans are louder (21db). The design is essentially hands free levitating craft. When the rider is flying the craft, he/she moves horizontally by weight transfer, like a snowboarder. For ascending and descending the rider turns their right leg outwards and inwards respectively on the foot plate. Prototype II, will be made with more powerful electromagnets and will give a flight time of 1 hour non-stop carrying a passenger of 80kg weight.

Design of the prototype

The design needed to be set up for experimental testing as well as be a testament to design without compromising either. Balancing the design became complicated because the machine had to have natural balance with the riders feet location. This allowed the rider to shift direction horizontally by transferring weight from one foot to another, and left and right by transferring weight from toes to heel.
The batteries, (the single heaviest items) are located in the centre of the craft, while the four engines are located exactly the same distance from the four corners of the craft. Getting the controls to be simple and ergonomically convenient was also a challenge since I wanted to adopt a hands free aircraft. I opted for a foot controlled throttle and a leg mounted power switch. The earliest design of the skyboard is downloadable for browsers to look at as a word doc below. The word doc will give you an understanding of how the basic design works. There have been extensive modifications done to the built prototype such as sensors and cooling system.

Construction of the skyboard

The transformation from design to prototype was the most challenging task and a lot has been learnt for future development. From the beginning there was a battle of feasibility and material strength with budget costs. It was also at this stage where I had to do a major redesign of the circuit board. After testing the first magnetic engine with sensorless circuit board I discovered the hammering vibration could only be stopped by incorporating Infrared sensors. This gave the circuit board a proximity alert as to when to switch over the solenoids in each pair.

Download our "skyboard Project" document

The levitation test

The levitation revealed something remarkable. The system had the stators accelerating or oscillating faster than the manufacturer specs. When the solenoid is operating in its designed manner i.e. moving the armature, the force has to move a mass of 1.1kg (armature). But in the engine configuration the moving stators (weighing 5.2kg each) are counterbalanced with each other through a pivot and is therefore weightless. This led to machine hopping because the stroke time was much shorter than the inactive actuation time. Although it was hopping a few millimetres off the ground, the changes that are needed for permanent levitation are visible.