Design, Construction, and Flight Testing of the World's Fastest Micro-Scale Quadcopter

摘要

In recent years, the quadrotor configuration has resurfaced, enabled by access to low-cost, high performance sensors and electric motors. At the same time, the "Micro Aerial Vehicle" (MAV) world has yet to fully take advantage of the platform in transition flight. This paper involves a new class of transitioning aircraft proposed in 2013 (denoted the XQ-139) that circumvented the complexity and weight penalties of tilt-rotor/wing aircraft and was scaled down to explore the aircraft family's full design envelope. Specifically, it details the scalability of the general XQ-139 design involving the development of a micro-scaled version of the originally-proposed XQ-139 A. It further describes the design evolution of the aircraft's aerodynamic shell from the perspective of drag reduction and exploiting the effects of structural scaling to build a monocoque airframe which provided both smooth curvature and a structural capability better than carbon composites in terms of both effective strength-to-weight and survivability. Data from controlled bench tests of the small-scale rotors were investigated. The pertinent flight test parameters that could be experimentally verified are discussed. This includes a thorough investigation of boosting the aircraft's top speed with a commercially-available solid rocket motor. This achieved a top speed of 133 mph (11,700 ft/min) verified photogrammetrically and is believed to be the world's fastest quadcopter, particularly at this scale having a motor-to-motor span of just 4.75 in. (12 cm). The paper concludes with a discussion of the direct potential applications of the design as a consumer technology and future capabilities of this unique small-scale architecture.