Integration of Macro-Fiber Composite Material on a Low Cost Unmanned Aerial System

92 Pages·2017·6.79 MB·English

by  May Chong Chan

Dissertations and Theses
5-2017
IInntteeggrraattiioonn ooff MMaaccrroo--FFiibbeerr CCoommppoossiittee MMaatteerriiaall oonn aa LLooww CCoosstt
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May Chong Chan
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SScchhoollaarrllyy CCoommmmoonnss CCiittaattiioonn
Chan, May Chong, "Integration of Macro-Fiber Composite Material on a Low Cost Unmanned Aerial
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INTEGRATION OF MACRO-FIBER COMPOSITE MATERIAL
ON A LOW COST UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEM
A Thesis
Submitted to the Faculty
of
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
by
May Chong Chan
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
of
Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering
May 2017
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Daytona Beach, Florida

iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would never have been able to complete my thesis without the guidance of my
advisorycommittee, thefinancialsupportfrommysponsor, researchprojects, andthe
university, the help from my friends, as well as, the love of my family. Immeasurable
appreciation and the deepest gratitude to everyone for their support and for the
pleasant work climate.
Specifically, I wish to thank Dr. Moncayo for his continuous guidance, encourage-
ment, and help through these three years and for giving me the opportunity to work
in diverse projects that help me grow as a person and as an engineer. I would also like
to thank the members of my thesis committee, Dr. Prazenica and Dr. Kim, for their
constant feedback of ideas and advice for the thesis. Special thanks to Andres Perez,
Boutros Azizi, Matt Clark, Lenny Gartenberg, Tony Zhao, and Agustin Giovagnoli
for their much appreciated assistance.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
LIST OF FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2 Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2 Aileron Actuator Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 Modeling and Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 Analytical Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Experimental Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Fabrication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.1 Wind Tunnel Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3 Simulation Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.1 Aircraft Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.1.1 Aircraft Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.1.2 Trim Condition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.2 Actuator Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.2.1 Engine Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.3 Sensor Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.4 Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4 Control Law Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.1 Aircraft Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.1.1 Linearization of the Skywalker Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.1.2 Poles for the Open-Loop System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.1.3 Aircraft Dynamic Behavior through Transfer Function . . . 40
4.2 Control Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.2.1 Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) . . . . . . . . . 41
4.3 Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.4 Waypoint Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5 Performance Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
v
Page
5.1 Performance Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.2 Actuator Performance Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
6 System Integration for Future Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.1 Hardware Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
6.1.1 Instrumentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
6.1.2 AMT2012-CE3 Dual High Voltage Amplifier . . . . . . . . . 69
6.2 Software Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6.2.1 Simulink Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6.2.2 Signal Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
7 Conclusion and Recommendation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
A Skywalker Pre-flight Checklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
2.1 Geometric and Material Properties for the MFC Actuators . . . . . . . 14
3.1 Main Characteristics of Skywalker 1880 Airframe . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.2 Original Aircraft Stability and Control Derivatives . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.3 Lift and Drag Coefficients Comparison Between Mechanical and MFC-
Actuated Ailerons Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.4 Aircraft Trim Condition for Mechanical and MFC-Actuated Ailerons Sim-
ulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.5 Specification for Mechanical Servo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.1 Poles for Longitudinal Modes of the Skywalker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.2 Poles for Lateral Modes of the Skywalker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.1 Performance Index Weight and Normalization Cut-off Values for Trajec-
tory Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
5.2 Performance Index Weight and Normalization Cut-off Values for Control
Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
vii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1.1 Material structure of MFC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 Theoretical Tip Displacement Comparison Between Unimorph and Bi-
morph Structures Using Different Substrate Materials . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 Theoretical Unimorph and Bimorph Actuator Deflections Corresponding
to Substrate Thickness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3 Theoretical Blocking Force for Unimorph MFC Actuator Corresponding
to Actuator Width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.4 Experimental Setup for Unimorph and Bimorph Actuator Bench Test . 13
2.5 Theoretical and Experimental Deflection Comparison . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.6 MFC Aileron Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.7 Wind Tunnel Test Setup for Unimorph MFC Aileron . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.8 Wind Tunnel Test Results for Bimorph MFC Aileron . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.9 Wind Tunnel Test Results for Unimorph MFC Aileron . . . . . . . . . 18
3.1 Overview of MRAC Simulated Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2 Geometry Measurement of Skywalker 1880 in Inches . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.3 Resultant Geometry in Tornado VLM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.4 P.I.D. Servo Control Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.5 Engine Model for Turnigy D3542/6 1000KV Brushless Outrunner Motor 29
3.6 Communication Between Simulink and FlightGear . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.7 Skywalker RC Model in FlightGear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.8 Simple Graphical User Interface for the Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.1 Model Comparison between Simulated Linear and Nonlinear Dynamics 36
4.2 Pitch Response between Linear and Nonlinear Models . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.3 Bank Response between Linear and Nonlinear Models . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.4 Overview of MRAC Simulated Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
viii
Figure Page
4.5 Systems Output and Error Tracking of Regular Plant . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.6 Tracking Error Comparison Between Nominal and Disturbed Flights . 44
4.7 Outer Loop Controller using LQR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.8 Controller Response to Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.9 Bearing Calculation Derivation for Waypoint Navigation . . . . . . . . 48
4.10 Waypoint Navigation Logic Implementation with Mechanical Actuator 50
4.11 Waypoint Navigation Logic Implementation with MFC Actuator . . . . 50
5.1 Navigation Flight Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.2 Trajectory Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.3 Control Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.4 Performance Index Summary for Oval Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
5.5 Performance Index Summary for Figure-8 Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.6 Trajectory Tracking for Oval Path Using MFC-Actuated Ailerons . . . 61
6.1 Skywalker 1880 Assembled RC Model with MFC Halved-Ailerons . . . 62
6.2 Overview of Hardware Integration in the Skywalker 1880 . . . . . . . . 63
6.3 APM 2.6 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
6.4 InvenSense MPU-6000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
6.5 MediaTek MT3329 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
6.6 MS5611-01BA093 Barometric Pressure Sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
6.7 Pitot Tube and Pressure Sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
6.8 XBee Transceiver Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6.9 Spektrum DX8 Transmitter and Receiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
6.10 Turnigy Brushless Motor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
6.11 Turnigy 5000mAh Lipo Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6.12 AMT2012-CE3 Amplifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6.13 Overview of APM-integrated Simulink Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.14 APM 2.0 Blockset in the Simulink Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.15 Simulink Sensor Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
ix
Figure Page
6.16 Switch Command between Mechanical and MFC Ailerons . . . . . . . 73
6.17 PWM-to-Voltage Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
7.1 Proposed Design for MFC-Actuated Ailerons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76