Development of an in-flight thrust measurement system for UAVs

Gong, Andrew; Maunder, Hugh; Verstraete, Dries

doi:10.2514/6.2017-5092

Cited by 17 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In-flight thrust vector observation methods are described in [19][20][21] for fixed wing UAVs as well as traditional quadcopters, respectively. The described methods are limited to single-axis observations.…”

Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thrust Vector Observation for Force Feedback-Controlled UAVs

Werner

Strohmeier

Rothe

et al. 2022

Drones

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This paper presents a novel approach to Thrust Vector Control (TVC) for small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The difficulties associated with conventional feed-forward TVC are outlined, and a practical solution to conquer these challenges is derived. The solution relies on observing boom deformations that are created by different thrust vector directions and high-velocity air inflow. The paper describes the required measurement electronics as well as the implementation of a dedicated testbed that allows the evaluation of mid-flight force measurements. Wind-tunnel tests show that the presented method for active thrust vector determination is able to quantify the disturbances due to the incoming air flow.

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Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thrust Vector Observation for Force Feedback-Controlled UAVs

Werner

Strohmeier

Rothe

et al. 2022

Drones

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“…Hundreds of options are available for each of the components, with generally non-scientific advice for choosing the proper combinations. To date, there has been significant effort in the modeling [119][120][121][122] and testing [111,112,118,[123][124][125][126][127][128][129][130][131][132][133][134] of UAV propulsion system components. However, there has been comparatively limited effort put into optimizing the matching of these components [135], with most of the effort towards custom-designed or generic-shaped propellers [50,[136][137][138][139].…”

Section: Propulsion System Optimization Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Cyber-Physical Prototyping and Testing Framework to Enable the Rapid Development of UAVs

2022

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In this work, a cyber-physical prototyping and testing framework to enable the rapid development of UAVs is conceived and demonstrated. The UAV Development Framework is an extension of the typical iterative engineering design and development process, specifically applied to the rapid development of UAVs. Unlike other development frameworks in the literature, the presented framework allows for iteration throughout the entire development process from design to construction, using a mixture of simulated and real-life testing as well as cross-aircraft development. The framework presented includes low- and high-order methods and tools that can be applied to a broad range of fixed-wing UAVs and can either be combined and executed simultaneously or be executed sequentially. As part of this work, seven novel and enhanced methods and tools were developed that apply to fixed-wing UAVs in the areas of: flight testing, measurement, modeling and emulation, and optimization. A demonstration of the framework to quickly develop an unmanned aircraft for agricultural field surveillance is presented.

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“…In this paper we focus on the lift and drag curves at low mach numbers, as they are the starting point of most performance calculations, operational simulations and contingency analyses. There is a rich literature around the estimation of drag curves on small, uncrewed, fixed wing platforms, ranging from methods based on battery energy depletion [1], to thrust estimation [2][3][4][5][6] and to methods involving unpowered manoeuvres [7][8][9][10][11]. We are, however, not aware of any systematic comparisons of these methods, in terms of their accuracy and ease of implementation, and filling this gap is the goal of this paper.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental evaluation of the drag curves of small fixed wing UAVs

Weishäupl¹,

McLay²,

Sóbester³

2023

Aeronaut. j.

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Tight budgets often limit the scope of test campaigns within the development programmes of small uncrewed air vehicles (UAVs). This paper explores a range of combinations of instrumentation suites and protocols for both wind tunnel and flight evaluation, focusing on the key aspect of drawing up the drag curve of the airframe. Through extensive testing of a 5kg maximum take-off mass, fixed wing, twin motor, richly instrumented test platform, we show that automated glides over a range of airspeeds and the slow down manoeuvre are effective ways of determining power-off drag, while estimating thrust from propeller speed, and voltage and current sensing based methods work well for the power-on case. We also seek the most time-efficient and robust mix of the above manoeuvres to yield a given drag curve accuracy level and we find wind condition impacts the manoeuvre makeup of the optimal strategy.

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Development of an in-flight thrust measurement system for UAVs

Cited by 17 publications

References 9 publications

Thrust Vector Observation for Force Feedback-Controlled UAVs

Thrust Vector Observation for Force Feedback-Controlled UAVs

A Cyber-Physical Prototyping and Testing Framework to Enable the Rapid Development of UAVs

Experimental evaluation of the drag curves of small fixed wing UAVs

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