A Flying Ring

The Flying Ring is a new flying vehicle being developed at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zurich. The video depicts the first prototype flying tethered. The annular wing (or ring) has a flat airfoil shape. Autonomous controlled flights are done to extract aerodynamic properties of the vehicle. A lift to drag ratio (a metric for aerodynamic efficiency) of 12 is achieved for the ring only. The total vehicle lift to drag ratio is lower, but can be substantially improved upon with an optimi