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FIELDING an AMPHIBIOUS UAV: DEVELOPMENT, RESULTS, and LESSONS LEARNED Greg Pisanich, QSS Group Inc., NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Dr

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FIELDING an AMPHIBIOUS UAV: DEVELOPMENT, RESULTS, and LESSONS LEARNED Greg Pisanich, QSS Group Inc., NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Dr FIELDING AN AMPHIBIOUS UAV: DEVELOPMENT, RESULTS, AND LESSONS LEARNED Greg Pisanich, QSS Group Inc., NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Dr. Stephen Morris, MLB, Palo Alto, CA hard runway was successfully completed on July 5, Abstract 2001 and consisted of a take-off, rectangular flight pattern, and landing under complete computer control. A completely autonomous flight that This report summarizes the work completed on featured a water takeoff and landing was completed the design and flight-testing of a small, unmanned, on October 4, 2001. This report describes these amphibious demonstrator aircraft that flies activities in detail and highlights the challenges autonomously. The aircraft named ACAT encountered and solved during the development of (Autonomous Cargo Amphibious Transport) is the ACAT demonstrator. intended to be a large cargo carrying unmanned aircraft that operates from water to avoid airspace and airfield conflict issues between manned and Project Genesis and Long Term Goals unmanned aircraft. To demonstrate the feasibility of this concept, a demonstrator ACAT was The ACAT project was proposed as an designed, built, and flown that has a six-foot amphibious platform built to test advanced wingspan and can fly autonomously from land or information and system technologies. This testbed water airfield. would support multiple program objectives including: Intelligent Vehicle Health Management, The demonstrator was designed for a 1-hour Design for Safety, Intelligent Systems, and duration and 1-mile telemetry range. A sizing code Information Technologies Base programs. The was used to design the smallest demonstrator UAV system would test a wide range of capabilities: to achieve these goals. The final design was a six- • Advanced fault tolerant and self foot wingspan, twin hull configuration that diagnosing systems distributes the cargo weight across the span, • Autonomous flight control and planning reducing the wing structural weight. • Advanced real-time communications and monitoring systems The demonstrator airframe was constructed from balsa wood, fiberglass, and plywood. A 4- The testbed would be developed in phases. The stroke model airplane engine powered by methanol first phase consisted of a small prototype to test out fuel was mounted in a pylon above the wing and the basic capabilities. Based on the results of the powers the ACAT UAV. Initial flight tests from initial flight tests, a larger phase II system was land and water were conducted under manual radio planned that would not only fulfill the basic control and confirmed the amphibious capability of operating capabilities, but would also meet the design. demonstration mission requirements. The demonstration mission requirement would consist Flight avionics that were developed by MLB of an autonomous flight from San Francisco to for production UAVs were installed in the ACAT Hawaii with a minimum cargo payload onboard. demonstrator. The flight software was also enhanced to permit autonomous takeoff and landing from water. A complete autonomous flight from a 1 The MLB Company of Palo Alto, CA was ACAT Demonstrator Configuration Design responsible for the design, development, and flight control systems of the UAV. The numerical optimization software that was used sizes the wing and propulsion system, but does Aircraft Design and Construction not specify the configuration. A twin-hull design was chosen to span-load the wing for reduced Sizing Study structural weight and for improved water handling. The engine is mounted above the wing in a pylon Based on the demonstration requirements of a San for maximum clearance from the water. The wing Francisco to Hawaii flight, MLB developed an sweep and airfoil shapes of a full-size ACAT will aircraft sizing code that used numerical depend on the desired cruise Mach number. The optimization to predict the span, area, propulsion, prototype design used a zero sweep wing and a and fuel of the smallest aircraft that could complete Clark-Y subsonic airfoil. A detailed structural that mission. Assuming a 2-pound payload for design of the aircraft was performed assuming a communication and miscellaneous equipment, the hull shape based on information in NACA report numerical optimization results predicted an aircraft TN-2481 for hulls with improved planing stability. with the following performance and characteristics: Full size plans were drawn and the construction of the airframe was initiated. • Cruise speed = 60 mph IAS • Range = 3000 mile (no wind) ACAT Demonstrator Construction • Duration = 50 hours • Climb Rate at take-off = 350 fpm The ACAT airframe is built primarily from • Span =12 ft 2 balsa and plywood with fiberglass reinforcing, • Area =12 ft epoxy paint, and Mylar covering. The conventional • Gross Take Off Weight = 87 lb flight controls (aileron, dual rudders, elevator, and • Fuel = 5 gallons throttle) are operated by model airplane servos. • Power installed =5 HP Figure 1 shows a series of photographs • [Assumed SFC=0.4 lbfuel/(HP-hour)] summarizing the major steps in the construction of the airframe. A smaller version of this aircraft was designed as the initial ACAT test aircraft. This prototype A 2-stroke 0.40 cubic inch engine was initially would be used to demonstrate the amphibious flight installed in the ACAT (this was later changed to a operations and test the autonomous flight control 0.70 cubic inch 4-stroke engine for increased power system. Its specifications were: and better fuel economy). The aircraft was filled with lead ballast to mimic the avionics payload that would be added later. A removable set of coil- • Cruise speed = 35 mph IAS sprung landing gears was fitted to each hull for • Range = 35 miles (no wind) operation from hard runways. The aircraft weighed • Duration = 1 hour 12 pounds with fuel at this stage. • Climb Rate at takeoff = 350 fpm • Span= 6 ft • Area= 6 ft2 Radio Control Flight Tests • Gross Take off Weight = 8 lb For the first flight tests, the ACAT was flown This included a 1 lb flight avionics weight and from a hard runway using the smaller 0.4 cubic inch standard 4-stroke model airplane engine technology for propulsion. engine. These tests showed a slight tail-heavy condition and a need for coupling between the ailerons and rudders to eliminate adverse yaw while rolling at low speeds. The stall characteristics were docile. 2 Figure 1. Amphibious UAV Construction Sequence. The pylon mounted engine produces some coupling off run. The aircraft flew very well, had docile between the thrust and pitch moment which must be handling qualities, and plenty of power. It handled compensated for as the throttle is changed. Overall, well on the water (steering and planing) and showed the flights from land were very successful. no signs of leakage in the hulls. The landing gear was removed and floatation tests were conducted to verify that the aircraft had a Avionics Development proper water line and no hull leaks. Initial attempts at water take-off showed the spray from the hulls Flight Control System was hitting the propeller such that the engine could not develop enough RPM to achieve planing speed. The flight control hardware (Figure 2) used for Spray fences were added to the front sides of the the ACAT demonstrator is the same system used in hulls and a smaller diameter propeller was installed MLB’s Bat UAV but with software specifically with greater pitch. With these changes, the UAV developed for the ACAT airframe and mission. was able to reach planing speed with a 50 foot take- 3 Figure 2: MLB ACAT flight control avionics. The avionics use automotive grade landing. A return-to-home capability was piezoelectric rate gyros, MEMS based developed and tested to insure that the UAV would accelerometer, solid-state pressure and altitude return to a preprogrammed location in the event that sensors, and a miniature 12 channel GPS receiver. the uplink signal was lost. These components are mounted to a circuit board that includes a Motorola 68336 CPU programmable in ‘C’, 8 MB flash RAM card for flight data storage, and all interface electronics to the model airplane radio receiver and servos. Figure 3. An MLB Bat was used as ACAT flight Figure 4. ACAT ground station hardware. control avionics test bed. Ground Station The hardware was initially tested in an MLB Bat airframe shown in Figure 3. The Bat was flown MLB also developed an integrated ground autonomously between pre-programmed waypoints station that communicates with the flight avionics with manual radio control for launching and through a data modem on the video telemetry sound 4 channel. The ground station hardware is shown in stability and the GPS guidance gains for proper Figure 4. course navigation. Figure 6. Layout of ACAT hardware within the aircraft. Figure 5. MLB ACAT ground station interface. After many test flights we were able to The ground station uses a PC laptop as its display command airspeed, altitude, and heading with console and a screen image of typical flight data is acceptable stability and accuracy. The previously shown in Figure 5. mentioned coupling between engine thrust and pitch The ground station shows the aircraft’s moment had made the phugoid motion somewhat location on a moving map display that is updated oscillatory, but still acceptable. Figures 7 and 8 every second. Also displayed are altitude, speed, show the trajectory, altitude, and airspeed during an GPS status, battery voltage, and a choice of flight autonomous flight with navigation between 2 parameter plots or live video screen. All of the waypoints. The gray portion of the course indicates flight data and video is recorded on a ground based autonomous flight and the trajectory is slightly Video Cassette Recorder for post-flight analysis. oscillatory at times due to a high value for the guidance gain. Integrated Flight Tests The MLB avionics were integrated into the ACAT airframe along with the video telemetry downlink system.
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