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Flight Performance of a Package Delivery


Quadrotor Biplane

Conference Paper · January 2017

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Flight Performance of a Package Delivery Quadrotor Biplane
Brandyn Phillips Vikram Hrishikeshavan
Graduate Research Assistant Assistant Research Scientist

Derrick Yeo Inderjit Chopra


Assistant Research Scientist Distinguished University Professor
Alfred Gessow Professor and Director
Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center
University of Maryland, College Park
College Park, MD, USA

ABSTRACT
Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) capable air vehicles such as quadcopters are being considered for a vast array
of missions requiring longer endurance in hover, faster travel times, and higher payload capacities. For this reason,
hybrid air vehicles that incorporate the design features of rotorcraft and fixed wing vehicles appear to be promising
candidates for these missions. One such hybrid vehicle, the quadrotor biplane, has been explored for package delivery
capability. This vehicle configuration has two wings placed perpendicular and below four proprotors in a biplane
configuration. The vehicle uses conventional quadrotor control methodology for flight control in both hover and
froward flight mode. It enters hover in tail-sitter configuration and utilizes differential thrust vectors to pitch forward
into forward flight configuration. Using differential RPM in place of conventional control surfaces greatly reduces
mechanical complexity. The vehicle design and package delivery functionality have been validated experimentally, in
both hover and forward flight, with a test vehicle that has a gross takeoff weight (GTOW) of 3.76 kg and a 0.45 kg
payload capacity. To characterize the flight performance of this vehicle design during its transition between the two
flight modes, a comprehensive sensor suite paired with a flight data recorder system were designed and incorporated
into the vehicle. Motor RPM was measured with hall effect sensors, while a combined voltage and current sensor
measures the power consumption from the main battery. A barometric pressure, temperature, and altitude sensor was
integrated to determine the atmospheric conditions. Lastly, a custom 2-D flow probe designed in-house has been
implemented to measure airspeed and angle of attack of the fuselage body relative to the oncoming wind. In forward
flight, the vehicle was flown with no payload and was shown to require 138 W, 68% less power than the 430 W needed
in hover. This efficiency gain occurred when the vehicle pitched to 55.8◦ from vertical, with no payload, while flying
at 7.31 m/s with respect to the wind. Another observation made from flight data in hover indicates that increasing the
size of the payload from 0 to 1lb (empty to full) increases the amount of power required by 18%.

NOTATION INTRODUCTION
α, angle of attack The performance of Micro and Unmanned Air Vehicles
CD , Coefficient of Drag (MAVs/UAVs) are advancing every day, with new applica-
CL , Coefficient of Lift tions that require larger range, better payload fraction, and
Kv, motor velocity constant faster transit speed while retaining VTOL capability. Many
mAh, milliamp-hours unique hybrid concepts have been developed to combine the
P, electrical power performance advantages of rotary-wing and fixed-wing vehi-
ρ, air density cles. Researchers have investigated a number of these hybrid
CL = ρV2L2 A designs thoroughly, such as tail-sitters, tilt-rotors and tilt-wing
CD = 2D vehicles (Refs. 1–5). Hybrid designs such as the tilt-rotor,
ρV 2 A
tilt-wing, and fan-in-wing configurations possess the opera-
Presented at the 7th AHS Technical Meeting on VTOL Un- tional advantage of maintaining vehicle fuselage orientation
manned Aircraft Systems and Autonomy, Mesa, AZ January in both VTOL and forward flight modes. This advantage
2017. Copyright c 2017 by the American Helicopter Society comes at a cost, as these designs incur a weight penalty due
International, Inc. All rights reserved. to the mechanisms needed to actuate their rotors/wings. Tail-
1
sitter vehicles present an appealing alternative because they gains seen in the smaller vehicle could scale up. This paper
are mechanically simple. These tail-sitter vehicles can be cat- will discuss the test vehicle’s design and construction, outline
egorized as tilt-body configurations, which typically require the numerous sensors installed to gauge various performance
aerodynamic surfaces in the downwash of their propellers to metrics, and then discuss the results obtained with these sen-
create the pitching moments necessary to change flight orien- sors during hover testing as well as transitional flight testing.
tation. Tail-sitter designs have their own drawbacks, as they
may suffer from low control authority. The quadrotor biplane PACKAGE DELIVERY QUADROTOR
configuration was conceived with the intent to circumvent this
issue. In VTOL mode it functions like a conventional quad-
BIPLANE OVERVIEW
copter. In forward flight cruise mode, its two stationary wings Motivation and Previous Development
generate vertical lift and variations in the motor RPMs pro-
duce differential thrust and control moments. The change in The experimental verification of the quadrotor biplane began
vehicle orientation results in the rotors thrusting in the direc- with a smaller-scale test vehicle. In the previously mentioned
tion of travel and leads to faster, more efficient flight. wind tunnel tests, the interactions between a isolated propeller
At the University of Maryland, there have been numerous and wing were examined to characterize the vehicle’s effi-
studies and experiments focused on the quadrotor biplane con- ciency (Ref. 6). The results of this study, seen in Figure 2,
cept, depicted in Figure 1 (Refs. 6–11). This concept expands show that the power required in forward flight can drop up to
upon a typical quadrotor vehicle, with two wings mounted 1/3 of what is required in hover. Following this validation, the
perpendicular and beneath the quadrotor frame. The vehicle biplane wing airfoil cross section, wing spacing, wing sizing,
sits at rest with the biplane wing trailing edges on the ground and motor placement were all examined to determine their im-
and the rotor thrust vector up. In this configuration, the vehi- pact on performance, thereby contributing to the development
cle is VTOL-capable and by controlling the rotor thrust vec- of an optimal vehicle configuration (Ref. 7).
tors it transitions through wing stall to enter into forward flight
configuration. Initially, the advantages gained from the ve-
hicle configuration were characterized in wind tunnel testing
(Ref. 6). Afterward, a comprehensive study was carried out
to determine the optimum design of the vehicle at the smaller
scale (Ref. 7). Next, an investigation was made into improv-
ing roll control authority through measures such as changing
vehicle geometry, introducing control surfaces on the wings,
and even using variable pitch propellers (Ref. 8).

Fig. 2: Power Requirement in Trim at Different Forward


Flight Speeds for Propeller-Wing System

To improve roll control authority in forward flight mode,


various measures such as flaps, variable pitch rotors, and ge-
ometry changes were explored (Ref. 8). The most effective
measure found in this study involved departing from conven-
tional quadrotor vehicle designs by canting the motors inboard
Fig. 1: Quadrotor Biplane
10◦ from vertical, as seen in Figure 3. By angling the motor,
a portion of the thrust is vectored inboard, providing a couple
In the most recent study, the quadrotor biplane concept was that enhances yaw control authority in hover and roll control
examined at a larger scale with the purpose of demonstrating authority in fixed wing mode, respectively. It was found that
its function as a package delivery vehicle (Ref. 11). The ex- the the vehicle experiences an average increase in roll perfor-
perimental vehicle not only validated the quadrotor biplane mance by 117.4% while only sacrificing an average of 1.5%
concept at this larger scale, but it also successfully and re- of vertical thrust (Ref. 8).
peatably delivered a package after flying through its various While the quadrotor biplane has primarily been explored
flight modes. It was desired for performance evaluation to be eperimentally and at a small scale, it has been adapted to var-
carried out in test flights to better measure how the efficiency ious missions in larger, theoretical designs. For the 32nd An-
2
the bottom: (1) vehicle lifts off in VTOL mode with the wings
perpendicular to the ground, (2) a pitch down maneuver is
conducted that transitions the vehicle into forward flight, (3)
the vehicle cruises in forward flight and, (4) transitions back
to VTOL mode.

Fig. 3: Canted Motor Mount with Inward Side Force

nual AHS Student Design Competition, UMD graduate stu-


dents ended up selecting the quadrotor biplane concept for
their design projects as an efficient delivery drone. Their ve- Fig. 5: Flight Modes of a Quadrotor Biplane
hicle, the AirEZ, was outfitted to transport a variety of pay-
loads within an 80.5 km x 80.5 km area quickly and au-
tonomously (Ref. 9). The following year saw the quadrotor The quadrotor biplane possesses a number of advantages.
biplane again applied by UMD graduate students for the 33rd The vehicle behaves like a conventional quadrotor in VTOL
Annual AHS Student Design Competition. Here the Halcyon mode, retaining its maneuverability and small landing foot-
vehicle was designed to be deployed ”from the ramp of a C- print. To affect vehicle transition and attitude control, pitch-
130J in flight ... to precisely deliver supplies to remote areas ing moments are created via differential rotor thrust. Fig-
from hover and then return to a predetermined base for recov- ure 6 shows the pitch, roll, and yaw control moments for
ery” (Ref. 12). These designs, which reflect just two of the both the hover and forward flight conditions of the vehicle.
possible applications for the quadrotor biplane concept, are In this manner, sufficient control authority can be achieved by
pictured in Figure 4. controlling motor RPM, allowing the vehicle to operate with-
out aerodynamic control surfaces. Utilizing differential mo-
tor RPM instead of control surfaces is the key to keeping the
quadrotor biplane mechanically simple and lightweight com-
pared to other tail-sitter configurations.

Vehicle Design

The scaled up quadrotor biplane test vehicle was designed to


reflect the AirEZ quadrotor biplane concept explored in the
design competition submission (Refs. 9, 11). The vehicle has
a payload capacity of 0.45 kg, resulting in a GTOW of 3.76
(a) (b) kg. Previous investigation into high-CL airfoil performance
across a regime of airfoils found the Wortmann FX 63-137
Fig. 4: (a) Halcyon and (b) AirEZ Concepts airfoil the most effective airfoil cross-section for the biplane
wing (Ref. 9). The Wortmann FX 63-137 was also experimen-
tally found to have acceptable CL /CD characteristics (Ref. 10).
Operating Concept The wings of the vehicle were cut from expanded polystyrene
(EPS) foam, reinforced with a hollow carbon fiber tube along
As previously discussed, the quadrotor biplane consists of a the spar, and strengthened at the tips and trailing edge with
conventional quad rotor configuration mounted onto two fixed fiberglass tape. Following the choice of the wing profile, the
wings. The operating modes of the vehicle are highlighted in span and chord were then determined. The GTOW factored
Figure 5 and follow the counterclockwise progression from heavily into this decision, though some assumptions were
3
Table 1: AirEZ Scaled Weight Breakdown

Part Weight(g)
Airfoils, w/out Tape (x2) 174
Airfoil Spar (x2) 87.7
Battery 556
(a) Top View, Hover ESCs (x4) 128
Landing Gear (x4) 72.7
i
MicroRax Cross Assembly 138
ABS Motor Mounts 152
Motors w/ Props (x4) 698
Payload 454
Payload Frame 150
Nose Cone Structure 173
Stabilizers (x2) 48.5
(b) Fron View, Forward Flight Package Delivery Components 128
Carbon Fiber Frame Panel (x4) 177
Fig. 6: Control Moments for (a) Hover and (b) Forward
Electronics Suite 39.0
Flight
Miscellaneous Weight 661
Total Weight 3.76 kg

made in keeping with the initial AirEZ design. A cruise CL Flight Controller
value of 0.6 and a cruise speed of 13.38 m/s were chosen.
From these values, the wing planform area was determined to The microcontroller used onboard the quadrotor biplane is
be 0.26 m2 . The aspect ratio of the wing was set at 4 to keep a state-of-the-art autopilot system developed in-house at the
the vehicle relatively compact with limited penalty in aerody- Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center (Ref. 13). The Enhanced
namic performance (Ref. 7). This led to defining the chord Lightweight Kinematic Autopilot (ELKA-R) board, pictured
length of the wing as 0.254 m and the span as 1.02 m. in Figure 7, is remarkably compact with a total weight of
1.7 grams and a 1 mm thickness. The ELKA board has an
installed Cortex-M4 microprocessor which was chosen for
Another key aspect of the scaled design was the rotor di-
its large memory and high clock speed. The board has an
ameter. For this purpose, the disk loading value of 7.2 kg/m2
integrated MPU-9150 IMU which comes with a 3-axis ac-
was selected (Ref. 9). From this value, the necessary rotor
celerometer, a 3-axis magnetometer, and a 3-axis gyroscope.
blade diameter was found to be 0.39 m. Commercially avail-
There is also a built-in 2.4 GHz wireless transceiver on the
able 15 x 5.5 (0.381 m x 0.127 m) carbon fiber propellers were
ELKA board, and the loop rate of the feedback control sys-
chosen to meet the rotor design requirement. To drive these
tem is 1000Hz (Ref. 13). The ELKA board can be powered
rotors, four Turnigy Multistar 4114 brushless motors were se-
by a 3.7V LiPo battery. Because the vehicle experiences large
lected based on their 320 Kv rating. The Kv rating is the ratio
changes in pitch angle when it transitions, A quaternion-based
of the unloaded RPM to the peak voltage of said motor, and
feedback controller was implemented. The control system de-
as such low Kv is desirable for motors that will be spinning
velopment and implementation are described in more detail
large propellers. To match the current draw expected from the
in (Ref. 14).
four motors during operation, the Turnigy 5000 mAh 4S 30C
Lithium Polymer (LiPo) Battery Pack with a 14.8V discharge
was chosen. The LiPo pack is rated for a constant discharge of
30C, meaning that this battery can sustain a constant current
discharge of up to 150 amps. The power coming from the bat-
tery to the motors is regulated by electronic speed controllers.
These take input from the micro-processor and regulate the
voltage sent to each motor to match the pilots throttle com-
mands. Turnigy Multistar 30A Slim V2 ECSs were selected
based on their rating of 30A and small profile.

The construction of the aluminum frame, wings, and pack-


age delivery system are detailed in (Ref. 11). A weight break-
down for all of the components on the vehicle can be seen Fig. 7: ELKA-R Microcontroller Used for Vehicle Autopi-
in Table 1. It should be noted that the miscellaneous weight lot and Flight Performance Data Collecton
comprises of the paint, glue, hardware, and the various flight
sensors.
4
Validation FLIGHT INSTRUMENTATION
Electronics Suite
Prior to these tests, validation of the vehicles roll and stabil-
The primary components of the electronics suite are two
ity during package delivery was recorded using the ELKA-R.
ELKA-R microprocessors. ELKA 1 is powered by the main
Figure 8 shows the inertial data collected with the autopilot
LiPo battery and functions exclusively as the vehicle autopi-
during the package delivery and includes markers indicating
lot, taking the inputs from the pilots controller and integrat-
the two instances where the packages were dropped. It can be
ing them into the control loop of the four motors. ELKA 2
seen from the data that the ELKA autopilot is more than capa-
receives the pilot commands as well, and is responsible for
ble of compensating for the weight shifts experienced during
processing this data along with the measurements from all the
package delivery.
other sensors. It packages this data into a convenient 46 byte
array which it sends to be stored onto an SD card at 40 Hz
using a Raspberry Pi Zero. This allows for convenient record-
ing of multiple flight test data. The data collection ELKA and
the Raspberry Pi Zero were integrated onto a breakout board,
which operates on an independent 1S 3.7V LiPo Battery. A
PowerBoost 500 power supply is used to convert the incom-
ing battery voltage to 3.7 volts for use by the ELKA and the
5V necessary to power the Raspberry Pi zero. Two buttons
were incorporated that can trigger the start of a new write file
as well as to cut power for the Raspberry Pi. On the breakout
board are various pins where the data from external sensors is
transferred to the ELKA. Figure 10 shows the electronics suite
which is housed under the hinged nose cone and includes the
two ELKA boards, altitude and temperature sensors, Power-
Boost 500 power supply, 1S Li-Po battery, and Raspberry Pi
Zero.
Fig. 8: Variation in Roll and Pitch During Package Deliv-
ery

In Figure 9 the vehicle is shown going through its flight


modes and then completing a package delivery, which was
demonstrated in a pure hover test as well. (Ref. 11).

Fig. 10: Electronics Suite with Labeled Components

Sensors

In an effort to record information about the vehicle’s perfor-


mance and environment, the following sensors listed below
were integrated on board along with the flight data recorder.
Fig. 9: Flight Footage in (a) Hover, (b) Transition, Figure 11 is an flow chart showing how information travels
(c) Forward Flight, with Subsequent (d) Package De- from the flight controller and these various sensors to the two
livery Demonstration https://www.youtube.com/ ELKAs.
watch?v=W11XAoe1AZo
1) Rotor Speed: Allegro Microsystems A1324LUA-T hall
effect sensors were stationed next to each of the quadrotor
5
5) Pressure Transducer: These are required to measure the
air flow in line with, and perpendicular to, the vehicle’s flight
path. Two Honeywell differential pressure sensors were se-
lected for this purpose, with operating range between -1 psi
and 1 psi. The data from the pressure transducers are com-
municated to the ELKA through 13 bit ADC conversion and
are sampled at 1000 Hz. The flow sensor which collects this
air flow data for the pressure transducers is discussed in the
following section.
These represent the basic sensor suite on board the vehicle,
but more sensors can be added by stacking multiple ELKA’s
onto the flight data recorder electronics hardware in the fu-
ture. For example, Kulite or Endevco pressure sensors can be
mounted on the wing surface to characterize the pressure dis-
tribution across the wing during flight transition. Or, a GPS
unit could be utilized to determine the ground speed of the
vehicle during forward fight.

Flow Probe

A custom orthogonal airspeed probe was attached to the nose


cone of the vehicle, seen in Figure 12. The probe is comprised
of brass tubes which are appropriately shaped prior to being
joined together. The pressure transducers are connected to
Fig. 11: Sensor Layout and Data Flow the brass tubes through production-grade Tygon plastic tubes.
The transducers measure the pressure fluctuations and then
convert the measurements into data, which is then transmit-
motors. Four magnets incrementally located on the outside
ted to the ELKA. The orientation of the flow ports allows for
of the motor pass beneath these sensors and allow each mo-
bidirectional measurement of air velocity components normal
tor’s RPM to be recorded over time. The pulses received by
and tangent to the vehicles path in forward flight. As a result,
the hall effect sensor were averaged every 300 microseconds.
both airspeed and the angle of attack of the vehicle can be
These sensors were appropriately read by the capture/compare
determined. (Ref. 15).
timers on the ELKA microprocessor.
2) Electrical Power: This represents one of the key mea-
surements of vehicle performance. An Attopilot 90A voltage
and current sensor was integrated in between the main Li-Po
battery and four ESCs to record the amount of power being
drawn from the battery during the flight. The voltage and cur-
rent analog measurements were sampled by the 13-bit ADC
peripherals via a STM32F405 microcontroller on the ELKA
at a sampling rate up to 1000 HZ.
3) Altitude and Temperature: Measuring these factors is
crucial when accounting for the effects of environmental vari-
ables on the vehicle performance. A SparkFun BMP180 baro-
metric pressure sensor measures altitude and temperature and
communicates the information to the ELKA using the Inter-
Integrated Circuit digital protocol, I2 C. The digital measure-
ments are sampled at 40 Hz. Fig. 12: Flow Probe Orientation on Vehicle and Conven-
tion for Calculating Airspeed and Angle of Attach
4) Pilot Inputs: Collecting this information is crucial for
flight control and power analysis. A secondary Spektrum
satellite receiver is linked to the same frequencey as the pri-
mary flight controller, allowing the data collection ELKA to The free-stream velocity vectors u and w, pointed along
receive the same signal as the main flight controller ELKA. the body-fixed x and z directions respectively, are computed
This information is measured using serial communication pro- with Equations 1 and 2, where Ku, Kw, and Kb are calibration
tocol every 7 microseconds. constants and P1, P2, P3, and P4 denote the pressure at the tips
6
of the multi-hole probe as depicted in Figure 12. look at just the pitch, airspeed, and power from the first area,
t = 28.5 seconds to t = 44 seconds, is provided in Figure 16.
s
2Kb (P1 − P2 ) In this figure, the peak power being consumed by the ve-
u = Ku (1) hicle in hover is close to 430 W. We see that the lowest power
ρ
consumed during flight was 137.8 W at t = 43.3 seconds. At
s this time during the test, the approximate airspeed (with re-
2Kb (P3 − P4 ) spect to wind) and pitch angle of the vehicle were 7.31 m/s
w = Kw (2)
ρ and 55.8◦ from vertical. It is worth noting that the pilot was
very conservative with the application of throttle and vehicle
Due to symmetry in flow probe design, the value of the attitude changes. The change in power from hover to forward
calibration constants are equal (Ku = Kw). Therefore the total flight measured at t = 43.3 seconds represents a 68% decrease
velocity magnitude (V ) and angle of attack (α) can be com- in required power for the vehicle. The vehicle might be able
puted with Equations 3 and 4. It is important to note that the to achieve better efficiency with higher pitch angles, or with
velocity obtained by this probe is the airspeed of the vehicle faster airspeeds (i.e., greater application of throttle). Regard-
with respect to the wind, not the ground speed, since a GPS less, it is crucial that this efficiency increase has been observed
unit has not yet been integrated. for the quadrotor biplane vehicle at this scale, and in actual
flight conditions.
s Figure 17 again examines the data from the first green area,
p 2Kb [(P1 − P2 ) + (P3 − P4)]
V= u2 + w2 = Ku (3) this time comparing the various time-dependent sensor data.
ρ For both graphs, the x-axis represents an increase in pitch
from 0◦ (i.e. hover) to 64◦ from vertical as shown in by the
w two quadrotor biplane images. The top graph shows that with
α = arctan (4)
u increasing pitch, the power decreases consistently, while the
inverse holds true for airspeed in the bottom graph. Figure ??
FLIGHT TEST DATA shows that for the same data, power decreases as airspeed in-
creases. This corroborates the trend observed in data collected
Effect of Payload on Hover Performance during the wind tunnel testing of the small scale propeller-
wing system previously shown in Figure 2.
As a means of testing the functionality of the various sensors
and the data storage, a series of tests were carried out. In
these tests, the vehicle was piloted to hover for a short time CONCLUSIONS
above the ground and then land, with 3 different payload con-
figurations: no payload, half of the total payload (1/2 lb), and Hybrid aerial vehicle configurations are being considered for
full payload (1 lb). Figure 13 shows the data collected during a wide range of missions, such as package delivery, emer-
the duration of the empty payload hover test. In order from gency relief aid, and sensing and observation. The goal of
the first subplot down are the time histories of: (1) the throttle this paper was to integrate flight sensors onto a package de-
command sent by the pilot, (2) the RPM of each motor, (3) the livery quadrotor biplane test vehicle and obtain performance
pitch of the vehicle body in degrees, and (4) the power drawn data during flight. A quadrotor biplane test vehicle designed
from the main LiPo battery. Figure 14 shows the power con- for package delivery was developed. The vehicle has a 0.45
sumed over time for the 3 different payload tests. While the kg payload capacity and a a GTOW of 3.76 kg. It was outfitted
vehicle was in stable hover, the average power was calculated with 15” fixed pitch carbon fiber propellers powered by four
for each case. It can be seen that the power required to hover brushless motors with a 320 KV rating. Two Wortmann FX
with full payload requires on average 18% more power that it 63-137 biplane wings with a chord length of 0.254 m and a
does to hover with no payload. 1.02 m span were mounted beneath the propellers. Four ESCs
rated for 30A were used to control the power being drawn by
the motors from the 5000 mAh LiPo battery. A lightweight
Forward Flight Performance Data
aluminum frame and custom 3D printed parts were used to
construct the body of the vehicle.
The next set of data, shown in Figure 15, is from a full flight
test that saw the vehicle enter into hover, transition to vari- Various sensors were chosen to collect the vehicle flight
ous angles of attack, and then return to the ground in hover. data. Two ELKA-R microcontrollers were used on board,
To keep the performance of the vehicle consistent, no pay- with ELKA 1 being used as the main vehicle autopilot and
load was introduced. The order of the data presented is: (1) ELKA 2 functioning as the flight data collector for the pi-
the RPM of each motor, (2) the pitch and roll of the vehicle lot command signals along with all of the other sensor
body in degrees, (3) the airspeed of the vehicle with respect data. A voltage and current sensor was leveraged to char-
to wind, and (4) the power. In this graph, the 3 areas bordered acterize the power consumption of the vehicle. An alti-
by dashed lines and filled with green indicate instances when tude/pressure/temperature sensor was utilized to collect en-
the vehicle transitioned from hover to forward flight. A closer vironmental data. Hall effect sensors were placed near each
7
Fig. 13: Hover Test Data with No Payload Showing Time History of Throttle (1), Motor RPM (2), Pitch and Roll (3) and
Power Consumed (4)

Fig. 14: Effect of Payload Size on Power Consumption in Hover

8
Fig. 15: Flight Performance Measurements of (1) Motor RPM, (2) Pitch, (3) Power Consumed, and (4) Airspeed During
Transition Flight, with 3 Transitions from Hover to Fixed Wing Mode Indicated in Green

Fig. 16: Detailed View of First Transition to Fixed Wing Mode with (1) Power, (2) Airspeed, and (3) Pitch Indicated at
Time of Minimum Power

9
(a) Diagram of Vehicle’s Attitude Change with Plots Showing (1)
Power vs. Pitch and (2) Airspeed vs. Pitch (b) Power vs. Airspeed

Fig. 17: Comparing Performance Metrics for First Transition to Fixed Wing Mode

motor to determine individual motor RPM. And finally, a cus- ing of the package delivery vehicle and wind tunnel data col-
tom orthogonal 2-D flow probe was integrated to provide both lected for the smaller scale vehicle.
airspeed and vehicle angle of attack (α).
Future Work
Flight data was collected to examine two facets of the ve-
hicle: performance with varying payload, and performance Continued testing will be carried out to further characterize
during the transition to forward flight. Hover tests were con- the vehicle’s performance, namely at higher pitch-angles and
ducted with no payload, 1/2 lb payload, and 1 lb payload, and forward flight speeds, with payloads on board, and in windy
it was found that 18% more power is required when adding environments to examine stability. Another avenue of future
the full payload to the vehicle compared to when it is empty. work will involve implementation of the flight sensors dis-
Another important conclusion to be drawn from the hover cussed in this paper onto a new quadrotor biplane vehicle
test data is the strong correlation shown between numerous with variable pitch propellers. This will allow the stability
vehicle functions, such as the pilot throttle commands being and forward flight speed/efficiency of the vehicle with fixed
matched closely by the vehicle’s RPM, as detected by the hall pitch propellers to be compared with a vehicle equipped with
effect sensors, and the power consumption being detected by variable pitch propellers. Lastly, there is an opportunity for
the voltage and current sensor. Data was then collected from the on board flight data sensor suite developed for this paper
the vehicle during a full flight test outdoors. The most im- to be applied in a more general fashion to other experimental
portant trend observed in the data is that power consistently air vehicles to better help researchers characterize their per-
decreases with the increased airspeed experienced when the formance.
vehicle pitched down. It was observed that the power dropped
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
from 430 W to 137.8 W after pitching down from 0◦ to 55.8◦
and reaching an airspeed of 7.3 m/s. Similar trends were ob- The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. Omri Rand, Professor
served between power vs. airspeed data obtained in flight test- of Aerospace at Technion University, Haifa, Israel, and the
10
Israel Ministry of Defense for their support of this research. 10 Hrishikeshavan, V. and Chopra, I., “High-Speed Quad-
Rotor Biplane Micro Air Vehicle for Multiple-Role Missions,”
AUTHOR CONTACT INFORMATION American Helicopter Society 4th Asian-Australian Rotorcraft
Forum, Bangalore, India, November 2015.
Brandyn Phillips, bphill@terpmail.umd.edu 11 Phillips,
Dr. Vikram Hrishikeshavan, vikramh@umd.edu B., Hrishikeshavan, V., Rand, O., and Chopra, I.,
Dr. Derrick Yeo, derrickwyeo@gmail.com “Design and Development of a Scaled Quadorotor Biplane
Dr. Inderjit Chopra, chopra@umd.edu with Variable Pitch Proprotors for Rapid Paylaod Delivery,”
American Helicopter Society 72nd Annual Forum, West Palm
Beach, FL, May 2016.
12 Trollinger,
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1 Stone,
R., Anderson, P., Hutchison, C., Tsai, A., Gibbens, Govindarajan, B., Nagaraj, V., and Chopra, I., “Halcyon De-
P., and Wong, K. C., “Flight Testing of the T-wing Tail-Sitter sign Proposal,” American Helicopter Society 33rd Annual
Unmanned Air Vehicle,” Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 45, (11), Student Design Competition, August 2016.
November 2, 2008, pp. 673–685.
13 Hrishikeshavan, V. and Chopra, I., “Refined Lightweight
2 Frank,
A., McGrew, J. S., Valenti, M., Levine, D., and Inertial Navigation System for Micro Air Vehicle Appli-
How, J. P., “Hover, Transition, and Level Flight Control De- cations,” American Helicopter Society Specialists Meeting
sign for a Single-Propeller Indoor Airplane,” Paper AIAA on Unmanned Rotorcraft and Network Centric Operations,
2007-6318, AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Confer- Chandler, AZ, January 2015.
ence and Exhibit, Hilton Head, SC, August 20–23, 2007.
14 Hrishikeshavan, V., Bawek, D., Rand, O., and Chopra,
3 Kubo,
D. and Suzuki, S., “Tail-Sitter Vertical Takeoff and I., “Control of a Quad Rotor Biplane Micro Air Vehicle in
Landing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle: Transitional Flight Anal- Transition from Hover to Forward Flight,” American Heli-
ysis,” Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 45, (1), November 1, 2008, copter Society Specialists’ Meeting on Unmanned Rotorcraft,
pp. 292–297. Scottsdale, AZ, January 2013.
4 Suzuki,
S., Zhijia, R., Yoshikazu Horita, K. N., Kimura, 15 Hrishikeshavan, V., Yeo, D., and Chopra, I., “Onboard
G., Bando, T., Hirabayashi, D., Furuya, M., and Yasuda, K., Flow Sensing in a Quad Rotor Biplane Micro Air Vehicle for
“Tail-Sitter Vertical Takeoff and Landing Unmanned Aerial Transition between Hover and Steady-Level Flight,” Amer-
Vehicle: Transitional Flight Analysis,” Journal of Aircraft, ican Helicopter Society Specialists’ Meeting on Unmanned
Vol. 45, (1), November 3, 2010, pp. 416–428. Rotorcraft and Network Centric Operations.
5 Hrishikeshavan,
V. and Chopra, I., “Design and Control
of a Tilt-Wing Micro Air Vehicle in Hover,” American He-
licopter Society 68th Annual Forum, Fort Worth, TX, May
2012.
6 Hrishikeshavan,
V., Bogdanowicz, C., and Chopra, I., “Ex-
perimental Investigation of Performance of a Wing-Propeller
System for a Quad-Rotor-Biplane Micro Air Vehicle,” 54th
Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference,
Boston, MA, April 2013.
7 Hrishikeshavan,
V., Bogdanowicz, C., and Chopra, I., “De-
sign, Performance and Testing of a Quad Rotor Biplane Micro
Air Vehicle for Multi Role Missions,” International Journal of
Micro Air Vehicles, Vol. 6, (3), September 2014.
8 Bogdanowicz,
C., Hrishikeshavan, V., and Chopra, I., “De-
velopment of a Quad-Rotor Biplane MAV with Enhanced
Roll Control Authority in Fixed Wing Mode,” American Heli-
copter Society 71st Annual Forum, Virginia Beach, VA, May
2015.
9 Bogdanowicz,
C., Dhishika, D., Gudenius, B., Sidle, S.,
Wang, X., Winslow, J., Chopra, I., and Nagaraj, V., “AirEZ
Design Proposal,” American Helicopter Society 32nd Annual
Student Design Competition, August 2015.
11

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