Innovative Drone Design for the AHS Micro Air Vehicle Competition
Bobby Tang Dan, Utsav Shah · 2017
The project outlines a project idea of creating two micro aerial vehicles weighing less than 500 grams and less than 450 millimeters in any dimension.The quadcopters designed in this project are two different types of package delivery and pickup drones capable of autonomous and manual control.As a part of the American Helicopter Society International 2017 Micro Air Vehicle Student Challenge, the drones' design follows strict restrictions with the necessity of high performance and endurance.In this project, the drones will be developed to provide a pilot with the ability to control the drone via a radio transmitter and First Person View (FPV) goggle headset.The autonomous drone, however, will be designed to incorporate multiple sensors capable of target detection and obstacle avoidance.Optimal designs, including systematical consideration of the drones' mechanical and electrical performance, have been developed for both autonomous and pilot control modes.Engineering analysis on the stress and strain of the micro air vehicles and various experiments for the comparison of system performances have been conducted through CATIA software and field test approach.The results demonstrate the successfulness of the designed mechanical drone systems.