CASCADE Open Aircraft Project: University of Southampton VTOL Drone Development

Ferraro, Mario, Boyd, Cameron, Westcott, Oliver, Erbil, Mehmet and Entwistle, Robert (2021) CASCADE Open Aircraft Project: University of Southampton VTOL Drone Development. AIAA Scitech 2021 Forum, Virtual Event. 11 - 15 Jan 2021. pp. 1-35 .

Abstract

The Open Aircraft Project is an initiative by the UK Complex Autonomous Aircraft Systems Configuration, Analysis, and Design Exploratory (CASCADE) Programme Grant team to create small unoccupied aerial system (SUAS) designs which are freely available to all. Starting with a representative but challenging set of mission requirements, two individual teams have designed, built and test flown competing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) configurations. This paper describes the contribution made to this project by the University of Southampton with an investigation into the design, manufacture and testing of an unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV) capable of transitioning from hovering flight to conventional fixed-wing forward flight with vertical take-off and landing. Two configurations were investigated with the aim of achieving precision in take-off and landings with a comparably efficient long-range flight. The ability to perform vertical take-off and landing removes the requirement for a prepared airstrip with an unobstructed approach, which is often a serious constraint in the operation of conventional fixed-wing aircraft. This paper first explored the merits of a tail-sitter aircraft, with an emphasis on the minimisation of both the number of required propulsion sources and actuation devices for conducting relatively long-range investigative scientific missions. Flight testing of the tail-sitter aircraft revealed a number of unfavourable flight dynamics, which ultimately led to the decision to divert the investigation to the performance of a quad-plane configuration with the same requirements. The quad-plane design proved to be robust and able to operate effectively with an increased wind tolerance when compared to the tail-sitter design. Initial calculations based on a series of test flights suggest the quad-plane design, whilst carrying a reduced payload, will be capable of fulfilling the endurance and altitude requirements of the mission successfully.

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Contributors

Author: Robert Entwistle

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