Designing a tube-launched UAV

The objective of of this project, as part of the 2017 AIAA DBF Challenge, was to design and construct a tube-launched UAV that can fit inside an element-proof tube for transportation and storage and be deployed within 5 minutes to carry a payload of at least 3 hockey pucks for at least 3 laps of the mission course.

In order to meet this goal, we designed a fixed-wing aircraft with foldable main and tail wings for storage. The wings and tail automatically lock in place when unfolded, to emulate the mission requirements of being launched from a tube straight into steady flight. Our aircraft was capable of carrying over 12 hockey pucks.

Videos

Here is a video of the aicraft from the competition, successfully completing one of the missions:

No matter what happens, always fly the plane. In this video, a hard landing attempt caused the aircraft to lose its landing gear. Nevertherless a go-around was initiated and the aircraft successfully landed on its belly just a minute later:

Photos

Here are a few additional photos of our aircraft and the construction process: