Design Team Members: Inderdeep Matharoo, Raynier Ramasra, Owen Tabbert
Supervisor: Professor J. Zelek
Background
Have you ever thought laboratory equipment design could do more to create an engaging environment that better bridges the gap between theoretical concepts and practice?
Quanser, a world leader in the design and manufacturing of advanced systems for real-time control design and implementation used in industry, education and research, aims to reduce this gap by offering innovative and affordable educational controls products. A partnership between Quanser and the design team has been formed to pursue development of a proprietary vehicle that offers a challenging controls opportunity in the domain of autonomous aerial vehicles.
Numerous types of aerial vehicles exist - some of which can maintain stability after a power loss (airplanes), and others which are inherently unstable (helicopters). A variety of different radio controlled (RC) helicopter toy designs also exist, each with their own unique controls issues. Development of rotor based aerial vehicles have many practical applications, including search and rescue, however design and testing of the vehicles can be daunting and their usage is severely limited by availability of competent pilots. Since the overwhelming majority of RC helicopters are fragile, control theory testing is likely to incur high cost overruns in the form of replacement parts and reconfiguration time delays.
Project description and methodology
The design project team will control an inherently unstable aerial vehicle designed to mitigate crash damage. Due to the confidential nature of the project, details regarding the damage prevention techniques are omitted at this time.
The project will require aspects of mechanical design and fabrication to produce the physical components, as well as controls theory and programming to design an appropriate command structure to govern the motion of the vehicle. Comprehensive research into availability and capabilities of helicopter components will guide the selection of an appropriate rotor layout and technology. A simulation will then be developed based off a non-linear mathematical dynamics model formulation and will be characterized through testing of the physical prototype. Controls development will follow, with the intention of achieving stable flight for the March 2009 design symposium.