Design and Manufacture of Composite Landing Gear for a Light Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become popular for military applications as well as for use in structural inspection, weather monitoring, and festival demonstrations. Suitable landing gears to ensure that the UAV can take off and land safely are important when the price of the cargo and UAV increase. A lightweight and high-strength landing gear is desirable to overcome accidents during service. Composite materials are a promising, excellent solution for this purpose. This study demonstrated the design, numerical analysis (Ansys), manufacture, and experimental verification (LabVIEW) of a composite landing gear for a UAV. In particular, landing gears with different carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite fiber orientations were analyzed, manufactured, and experimentally verified in this study.

Keywords

• unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
• carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite
• Ansys
• LabVIEW