Contest in Bezmiechowa 2012

The time for maiden flight finally came. Contest of UAVs in Bezmiechowa (rganized avery year by SMIiL) was a perfect ocasion to try out our UAS-X1. Apart from our team of EUROAVIA Rzeszow from Rzeszow University of Technology, four other universities participated in a contest.

Fig. 1 Group photo

 We were trying to finish works over all systems but didn't managed on time. We are going to continue our work to test all systems in flight. Up to now, we tested only structure during maiden flight, without any extra electronic equipment. That was good a decision because some problems accrued with a directional stability and trimming of control surfaces, in a result we had a crash landing in a forest. Good news is that construction turned out to be strong enough to survive impact. 80 % of structure is in a good condition, so now we are analysing a possibility to fix it and put it into air again.

 Fig. 2

 Fig. 3 So this is like our UAS-X1 looks

 Fig. 4 And after a crash landing

Good new is that we tested behaviour in flight, we know what is needed to be improved. The best news is that nothing from basic design needs to be changed, longitudinal stability is really good, behaviour during catapult launch is also perfect (no problems with internal structure during high G-forces) so the future ahead of us is bright. We plan to have next flights before winter.

Movie from the maiden flight

Fuselage is READY

Fuselage is READY!!! Now we are installing equipment inside... A maiden flight soon - to be announced.

Manufacturing of fuselage

Hi, it's been a while but we are coming back with great news - we've build fuselage. Have a look how we did it.


We prepared molds for putting a lay up inside. The roughness of surface of molds is very important, thus we worked on it with waterproof sand paper and polishing paste. Right before laminating we covered surfacw with mold release wax and finally after all this proceedings we started with the best part of it - laminating. Have a look...

Fig.1 marking places for access doors

Fig.2 Cutting the nomex core

Fig.3 Cutting the fabrics

 Fig. 4 Laying up carbon fabrics



Fig.5 Lay up ready and waiting for core



Fig.6 Setting a vaccum

 Fig. 7 Under pressure

 Fig.8 Out of mold

Fig.9 With frames and empty place for "insert" for catapult launch fitting

Autopilot: Flight-by-wire mode presentation

Note that the roll angle is proportional to the control stick deflection

For more, visit MF Avionics homepage

Autopilot: X-Plane model presentation

Short video presenting volatile properties of our model.

For more, visit MF Avionics homepage

Autopilot: We are ready to simulate

Everything is connected and ready to fly ;-) In the picture below you can see the loop working.

There is only matching controller parameters left.

For more, visit MF Avionics homepage

Autopilot: Simulation loop

We gathered the necessary components to build and run our simulation. Loop's scheme is shown bellow.

It is described in polish, however visual symbols will help you to understand the concept.

For more, visit MF Avionics homepage

Autopilot: X-Plane model is completed

We have already built UAS-X1 model using Plane Maker - X-Plane supplement. See the photos.

We will use it for HIL simulation.

For more, visit MF Avionics homepage

Fuselage mould milling

Yep, it just started we are about to finally get our mould to laminate a fuselage structure.

But first we had to:

Design in a Catia V5, how to arrange material for milling, to avoid too much waste....

Then we cut a prolab into small pieces according to design above and stick them together in a proper way.

 

And finally we could move to workshop with milling machine. Of course on the way there we generated a CNC code for the machine....

So that's a result of 8 hours of constant milling and days spent over computer, in a workshop with hands on job... in dust and sweat :P Well we reckon that's impressive :)

Wings are alomst ready to fly!

We've just equipped the wings with servo actuators. It means more less that they are ready to FLY :D

 Now we need to wait until a fuselage will be ready...

Angle of attack and side-slip sensor

We managed to get into work a angle of attack and side-slip sensor, which we designed and build on our own. It sends first signals and processor is working fine, so check out very first screen of what it shows....

Video range test 1

We continued with test of video data transmission range. Here are some pics taken during a in-field work :)

First we made on our own, circular pattern vertically polarized antennas, adjusted to WiFi frequency, since that's interface we use to send video image.

First antennas to test (later we have plans to test a directional antenna and compare results)

Get ready and go!

In a car receiving video image. As you can see we used a standard WiFi router as a receiver. We have a preview of video trough web-browser. 

 

And a car sending a video signal, as a  transmitter we use video-server, like one that you will find here http://www.geovision.com.tw/english/Prod_GVVS12.asp

We connected a camera to that magic box, then putted a USB WiFi transmitter into it and it worked pretty well :) We hope for better range results with new directional antenna ;)

Tests of video cameras

We integrated whole system of video cameras and we started with test for obtainning a data transfer range and overall power consumption of whole observation system. 

Tests of parachute

We made first tests of a parachute to confirm results of a series of CFD simulations. It will help us to choose the best shape.

Fuselage

We are about to build moulds for fuselage. We decided to use a sandwich composite with aramid honeycomb core and of course vacuum technology.

That's how mould look like:

 Fig. 1 3D model of moulds

 Fig.2 Prolab

At figure 2 you can see a prolab material used for milling on CNC machine to obtain female moulds. It has many advantages, the most important one is that the surface of mould is ready to use right after milling, so it saves a lot of time, unfortunately it is one of the most expensive materials available.

Propulsion System

On 2nd of August we get equipment for propulsion system: propellers and engine. We decided to conduct wind tunnel tests to select best propeller for optimal energy consumption.

We chose Dualsky XM5060EA-8 engine. Which provides around 900 [W] of constant power.

Parachute Rescue System

Since our uav is going to land on a parachute, we started with PRS design. For the very beginning we used FloWizard software (from Fluent) to simulate flow around different shapes of parachute.

Few results:

Fig. 3 Flowpath

Fig.2 Vortexes 

Fig.3 Velocity distribution

Video cameras

Hi!

That's our concept for cameras arrangement:

One for observation of targets during the mission and one for pilot with on-screen-vision for presentation of navigational and attitude data

We get our video cameras. Both of them are standard analogue CCTV cameras. We chose them because of good quality/price ratio, which is quite essential in a student's project :)

Camera 1 (bigger one):

Sensor: 1/4" Sony CCD

Lens: MOTOZOOM, 3.9 ... 105.3 mm

Sensibility: 0.5 Lux

Resolution: 520 TVL

Angle range: 50° ... 2°

Optical zoom: x27

Functions: OSD menu, Autofocus

Camera 2:

 Sensor: 1/3’’ SONY SUPER HAD CCD II

Resolution: 600 TVL

Sensibility: 0,001 Lux

Lens:  3.6mm/F2.0

Angle range: 70° 

Stage 3 - composite laminating

In that stage, 2 weeks after we started so around 30th of July, we started with laminating of wings surface. We applied 0,8 [atm] vacuum to obtain perfect surface and results are seen at pictures below: