Patent attributes
A winch drum drive system for controlling a kite. The winch drum drive system includes spools for winding an unwinding kite control lines and a set of planetary gears rotatably attached to one end of each of the spools. A ring gear wraps around each set of planetary gears so that the internal perimeter of the ring gear is meshed with each of the planetary gears in the set. The ring gear includes a set of external teeth so that it may be meshed with a second ring gear corresponding to a different spool. A ring drive gear is meshed with one of the ring gears, so that when power is sent to the ring drive gear the ring gears rotate in different directions. A sun gear is positioned between and meshed with each set of planetary gears. A sun drive gear is placed between and meshed with the sun gears so that when power is sent to the sun drive gear, the sun gears rotate in the same direction. Using the proposed configuration, powering the ring drive gear causes the spools to rotate in opposite directions and powering the sun drive gear causes the spools to rotate in the same direction.
