Vertical Take-Off and Landing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Design Based on Foam 3D Printing Technology

Abstract

Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can quickly take off from ships, mountain tops, dense forests and other complex terrains and carry out operations, which is one of the main development trends of UVA with flexible deployment and high efficiency. In this paper, a VTOL UAV based on compound power system of lift engine and twin tilting culvert engines was designed. Numerical simulation analysis of its aerodynamic shape was carried out, and the results show that at a flight speed of 60m/s, the critical angle of approach of the vehicle is 30°, at which time, the maximum lift coefficient is 0.65, corresponding to a maximum lift of 552.344N, which can satisfy the requirements of high maneuverability flight. Through the experiments of different foaming parameters, the optimal parameters for 3D printing of the aircraft are 240°C printing temperature and 82% foaming ratio. A series of module division methods based on 3D printing were proposed for the design of the aircraft, and the topology optimization based on SIMP method was carried out for the key modules such as the wing middle section, wing tip, and drogue tail, so as to reduce the weight of the aircraft by 60%~70% under the premise of guaranteeing the strength of the aircraft. The optimized model was processed by foam 3D printing and the prototype was fabricated, and finally the vertical takeoff and landing attitude control test of the prototype was carried out in a controlled environment. The test results show that the vehicle has a stable attitude control capability, which meets the design expectation, verifies the feasibility of the vehicle configuration designed by the institute.

Keywords

• VTOL
• UAV
• foam 3D printing
• topology optimization
• fluid simulation