AN IMPROVED LIGHTWEIGHT MICRO SCALE VEHICLE CAPABLE OF AERIAL AND TERRESTRIAL LOCOMOTION by MATTHEW RYAN POLAKOWSKI Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Science Thesis Advisor: Dr. Roger Quinn Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY May, 2012 CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES We hereby approve the thesis/dissertation of _________________Matthew Ryan Polakowski__________________ candidate for the ________Master of Science______________ degree. (signed) ________Dr. Roger Quinn____________________________ (Chair of the Committee) ________Dr. Joe Prahl_______________________________ ________Dr. Paul Barnhart___________________________ (date) ____4/11/2012_______ ii For My Parents: Maureen and Ray, who supported me both mentally and financially through my years at CWRU and put up with twenty-some years of stepping on Lego bricks as I developed my engineering judgment. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................1 LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................4 LIST OF FIGURES ..............................................................................................................5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .....................................................................................................6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................................7 GLOSSARY .......................................................................................................................8 ABSTRACT BY ................................................................................................................ 10 CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 11 1.1 General ................................................................................................... 11 1.2 Chapter Topics ....................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 2 – PREVIOUS RESEARCH ................................................................................. 14 2.1 Micro Air Vehicles ................................................................................. 14 2.2 Ground Mobility ..................................................................................... 16 2.3 Multi-Mode Vehicles .............................................................................. 18 2.4 Current CWRU MALV Design .............................................................. 19 CHAPTER 3 – SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ............................................................................ 21 3.1 Mission Statement .................................................................................. 21 3.2 Concept of Operations ............................................................................ 22 3.3 System Modeling .................................................................................... 22 3.3.1 Functional Flow Block Diagram .................................................. 23 1 3.3.2 Trade Studies .............................................................................. 24 3.3.3 Configuration selection ............................................................... 27 3.3.4 Mass Budget ............................................................................... 28 3.4 Requirements ......................................................................................... 30 CHAPTER 4 - CONCEPTUAL DESIGN ................................................................................. 31 4.1 Aerodynamics ........................................................................................ 31 4.2 Propulsion .............................................................................................. 32 4.3 Electronics and Control .......................................................................... 34 4.4 Wheel-legs ............................................................................................. 35 4.5 Structures ............................................................................................... 37 CHAPTER 5 - DETAILED DESIGN ...................................................................................... 40 5.1 Propulsion .............................................................................................. 40 5.2 Aerodynamics ........................................................................................ 42 5.3 Electronics and Control .......................................................................... 49 5.4 Wheel-legs ............................................................................................. 53 5.5 Structures ............................................................................................... 54 CHAPTER 6 – MANUFACTURING ...................................................................................... 58 6.1 Wing ...................................................................................................... 58 6.2 Wheel-legs ............................................................................................. 59 6.3 Frame ..................................................................................................... 60 2 CHAPTER 7 - RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .......................................................................... 61 7.1 Verification and Validation..................................................................... 61 7.1.1 Subsystem Tests .......................................................................... 61 7.1.2 Flight Tests ................................................................................. 62 7.2 Final Aircraft Specifications ................................................................... 66 7.2.1 Final Mass Budget....................................................................... 67 7.2.2 Requirements vs. Capabilities ...................................................... 68 7.3 Comparison with Previous MALV Design .............................................. 69 CHAPTER 8 - CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK ............................................................. 71 APPENDIX 1 – MOTOR SIMULATION RESULTS .................................................................. 72 APPENDIX 2 – AERODYNAMIC FORCE BALANCE SPREADSHEET ........................................ 73 APPENDIX 3 – AVL INPUT FILES ..................................................................................... 77 APPENDIX 4 – WHEEL-LEGS CONTROLLER SOURCE CODE ................................................ 80 APPENDIX 5 – DRAWINGS PACKAGE ................................................................................ 82 APPENDIX 6 – FLIGHT TEST PHOTOGRAPHS ..................................................................... 89 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................. 96 Parts Sources...................................................................................................... 96 Design References ............................................................................................. 96 3 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Wing loading trade study results ...................................................................... 25 Table 2: Typical wing loadings for R/C model aircraft ................................................... 25 Table 3: Typical power loadings for R/C model aircraft ................................................. 26 Table 4: Wheel-leg torque trade study results................................................................. 27 Table 5: Wheel-leg speed trade study results .................................................................. 27 Table 6: Component category breakdown ...................................................................... 29 Table 7: Initial system requirements .............................................................................. 30 Table 8: Wing loading trade study with selected values ................................................. 31 Table 9: Motor, propeller, and battery options ............................................................... 40 Table 10: Selected results from propulsion system simulations ...................................... 42 Table 11: MALV Mass Budget ...................................................................................... 68 Table 12: Comparison of system requirements and capabilities ...................................... 69 Table 13: Comparison of MALV specifications with previous design ............................ 70 4 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Example MAVs, AeroVironment Black Widow (left) and Wasp (right) .......... 14 Figure 2: Example ornithopter MAV, AeroVironment Hummingbird ............................ 15 Figure 3: University of Florida flexible wing MAV ....................................................... 16 Figure 4: CWRU stick insect robots, Robot I (left) and Robot II (right) ......................... 17 Figure 5: CWRU cockroach robots, Robot III (left) and Robot V (right) ........................ 17 Figure 6: CWRU early Whegs robots, Whegs I (left) and Whegs II (right) ..................... 18 Figure 7: CWRU current Whegs robots, DAGSI Whegs (left) and Mini-Whegs (right) .. 18 Figure 8: CWRU MALVs, early design