Dario Schafroth

From the Test Benches to the First Prototype of the muFly Micro Helicopter

The goal of the European project muFly is to build a fully autonomous micro helicopter, which is comparable to a small bird in size and mass. The rigorous size and mass constraints infer various problems related to energy efficiency, flight stability and overall system design. In this research, aerodynamics and flight dynamics are investigated experimentally to gather information for the design of the helicopter’s propulsion group and steering system. Several test benches are designed and built for these investigations. A coaxial rotor test bench is used to measure the thrust and drag torque of different rotor blade designs. The effects of cyclic pitching of the swash plate and the passive stabilizer bar are studied on a test bench measuring rotor forces and moments with a 6–axis force sensor. The gathered knowledge is used to design a first prototype of the muFly helicopter. The prototype is described in terms of rotor configuration, structure, actuator and sensor selection according to the project demands, and a first version of the helicopter is shown. As a safety measure for the flight tests and to analyze the helicopter dynamics, a 6DoF vehicle test bench for tethered helicopter flight is used.

Modeling and System Identification of the muFly Micro Helicopter

An accurate mathematical model is indispensable for simulation and control of a micro helicopter. The nonlinear model in this work is based on the rigid body motion where all external forces and moments as well as the dynamics of the different hardware elements are discussed and derived in detail. The important model parameters are estimated, measured or identified in an identification process. While most parameters are identified from test bench measurements, the remaining ones are identified on subsystems using the linear prediction error method on real flight data. The good results allow to use the systems for the attitude and altitude controller design.

New design of the steering mechanism for a mini coaxial helicopter

Whenever the realization of a swash plate mechanism is not feasible (e.g. due to miniaturization limitations), center of gravity steering is an interesting alternative to swash plate steering. We present an approach to describe the dynamic behavior of a coaxial micro helicopter steered by a center of gravity shifting mechanism. The mechanical design of an existing system is improved to increase mechanical robustness and steering quality. In parallel, a simulation model is developed and implemented. It is used to estimate the system response to steering inputs, and to compare center of gravity to swash plate steering. Experimental flight results show an improvement of the helicopter performance due to the mechanical redesign.

Micro Helicopter Steering: Review and Design for the muFly Project

The steering system on a micro helicopter is the key element for control and navigation. For a sufficient control authority the steering has to be fast, precise, reliable and lightweight. While on full scale helicopters the choice of the steering mechanism is limited, there exist many possibilities to steer a helicopter in small scale. In this paper a survey on different concepts is given followed by a realization on the coaxial micro helicopter muFly. The mechanism uses piezoelectric actuation and a simplified swash plate to apply cyclic pitch and thus maneuver the Micro Air Vehicle.