Design and Development of an Air–Land Amphibious Inspection Drone for Fusion Reactor

Abstract

This paper proposes a design method for a miniature air–land amphibious inspection drone (AAID) to be used in the latest compact fusion reactor discharge gap observation mission. Utilizing the amphibious function, the AAID realizes the function of crawling transportation in the narrow maintenance channel and flying observation inside the fusion reactor. To realize miniaturization, the mobile platform adopts the bionic cockroach wheel-legged system to improve the obstacle-crossing ability. The flight platform adopts an integrated rotor structure with frame and control to reduce the overall weight of the AAID. Based on the AAID dynamic model and the optimal control method, the control strategies under flight mode, hover mode and fly–crawl transition are designed, respectively. Finally, the prototype of the AAID is established, and the crawling, hovering, and fly–crawling transition control experiments are carried out, respectively. The test results show that the maximum crawling inclination of the AAID is more than 20°. The roll angle, pitch angle, and yaw angle deviation of the AAID during hovering are all less than 2°. The landing success rate of the AAID during the fly–crawl transition phase also exceeded 77%, proving the effectiveness of the structural design and dynamic control strategy.