Flight Test Driven Development of Low Cost UAVs - Pitfalls and Opportunities

Weishaeupl, Adrian B.; Scanlan, James P.; Sóbester, András

doi:10.2514/6.2023-1739

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…During unpowered gliding flight, the propellers are electrically locked in place to stop any windmilling; however, the orientation that the propellers come to rest in cannot be chosen. This was preferred over windmilling propellers due to the overall drag reduction, however, does add an element of noise to the data [13]. FliTePlat's electric motors are ideal for repeated segments of unpowered flight due to their rapid restart capabilities, which internal combustion engines of the small UAV scale do not have.…”

Section: 'Fliteplat'mentioning

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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Section: 'Fliteplat'mentioning

confidence: 99%