VTOL aircraft combine the benefits of conventional fixed-wing aircraft (long endurance flight and a large payload capacity) with the benefits of multirotors (vertical takeoff and landing requiring small airfields). As part of this project, I aimed to design a mid-size UAV capable of carrying a 5kg payload while flying with an endurance of 1-2 hours.
In this project, I modelled a UAV wing with propellers using the numerical non-linear lifting line method. This was done in two parts: first I analyzed the performance of the wing without including the effect of the propeller wake. This included calculating the lift distribution, relationship between coefficient of lift and angle of attack, and stall behavior. Then, I layered in a model of the (simplified) effect of propeller wake on different sections of the wing. Using this method, I was able to observe the effect of changing propeller thrust and freestream angle of attack on the wing's performance, such as when entering a stall.
Plasma actuators, an active flow control technique, have potential to be used as an alternative to passive flow control and to overcome the limitations and disadvantages of existing commonly-used aerodynamic flow control techniques.
As fun as it is flying radio-controlled planes inevitably you do crash, break a part and have your fun cut short by disappointment. Then you’re stuck waiting for replacement parts, or worse, might have to build a new plane from scratch!
As part of the 2017 AIAA DBF Challenge, we designed and constructed a tube-launched UAV that can fit inside an element-proof tube for transportation and storage, be quickly deployed on site and carry a large payload (over 12 hockey pucks).