A novel geometry for a six degrees of freedom (6DOF) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) rotary wing aircraft is introduced and a flight mechanical analysis is conducted for an aircraft built in accordance to the thrust vectors of the proposed geometry. Furthermore, the necessary mathematical operations and control schemes are derived to fly an aircraft with the proposed geometry. A system identification of the used propulsion system with the necessary thrust reversal in the form of bidirectional motors and propellers was conducted at a whirl tower. The design of the first prototype aircraft is presented as well as the first flight test results. It could be demonstrated that an aircraft with the thrust vectors oriented according to the proposed geometry works sufficiently and offers unique maneuvering capabilities that cannot be reached with a conventional design. The biggest limiting factor could be identified to be the latency resulting from the time needed to reverse the direction of rotation of the bidirectional propellers. Special operational handling considerations for a manually flown 6DOF vehicle are summarized, and different approaches to control such a vehicle are described. Different mission scenarios and applications for a single aircraft in this design are concluded. Due to the symmetrical properties of the proposed geometry, several aircraft can also be connected at different orientations in flight. Consequently, the possibilities of docking in midair are illustrated, and possible mission scenarios for a group of aircraft, working together collaboratively, are presented. Especially when operated autonomously in a group of aircraft, new possibilities evolve from the capability of the proposed geometry to bond in different orientations.
{"title":"The Lynchpin—A Novel Geometry for Modular, Tangential,\u0000 Omnidirectional Flight","authors":"Terrence Howard, C. Molter, C. Seely, Jeff Yee","doi":"10.4271/01-16-03-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4271/01-16-03-0018","url":null,"abstract":"A novel geometry for a six degrees of freedom (6DOF) unmanned aerial vehicle\u0000 (UAV) rotary wing aircraft is introduced and a flight mechanical analysis is\u0000 conducted for an aircraft built in accordance to the thrust vectors of the\u0000 proposed geometry. Furthermore, the necessary mathematical operations and\u0000 control schemes are derived to fly an aircraft with the proposed geometry. A\u0000 system identification of the used propulsion system with the necessary thrust\u0000 reversal in the form of bidirectional motors and propellers was conducted at a\u0000 whirl tower. The design of the first prototype aircraft is presented as well as\u0000 the first flight test results. It could be demonstrated that an aircraft with\u0000 the thrust vectors oriented according to the proposed geometry works\u0000 sufficiently and offers unique maneuvering capabilities that cannot be reached\u0000 with a conventional design. The biggest limiting factor could be identified to\u0000 be the latency resulting from the time needed to reverse the direction of\u0000 rotation of the bidirectional propellers. Special operational handling\u0000 considerations for a manually flown 6DOF vehicle are summarized, and different\u0000 approaches to control such a vehicle are described. Different mission scenarios\u0000 and applications for a single aircraft in this design are concluded. Due to the\u0000 symmetrical properties of the proposed geometry, several aircraft can also be\u0000 connected at different orientations in flight. Consequently, the possibilities\u0000 of docking in midair are illustrated, and possible mission scenarios for a group\u0000 of aircraft, working together collaboratively, are presented. Especially when\u0000 operated autonomously in a group of aircraft, new possibilities evolve from the\u0000 capability of the proposed geometry to bond in different orientations.","PeriodicalId":44558,"journal":{"name":"SAE International Journal of Aerospace","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42467054","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}