Project Title: Design and Fabrication of a
Vibration-Isolated Avionics Box for a Rotary-Wing UAV
Technical Contacts: Steve
Glusman
BOEING DEFENSE and SPACE GROUP, HELICOPTER DIV.
MS P10-71,
Phone: (610) 591-4320, FAX: (610) 591 -8022
Dr.
Ed Smith and Dr. Joe Horn
Department
of Aerospace Engineering
233
ecs@rcoe.psu.edu,
joehorn@ psu.edu
Overview:
The field of Unmanned Air
vehicles (UAVs) holds great promise for accomplishing
a wide range of exciting commercial and military missions. UAV’s require highly reliable but lightweight
electronic equipment for guidance, navigation, control, health monitoring,
communication, and other purposes. A
major issue on rotary-wing UAV’s are the high vibration levels, which can
damage electronic components and contaminate sensor measurements used in guidance
and control.
Objectives:
The objective of this project is
to design and build a vibration-isolated avionics box for a remote-controlled
(RC) helicopter. The box will be
installed on the helicopter and tested in flight. Over the past two years, two other project
teams have worked on developing avionics equipment for the helicopter. One team worked on an inertial / GPS
navigation system, and the other team developed a vibration measurement
system. Preliminary flight tests
revealed that the helicopter fuselage experienced vibration levels as high as ±
5 g’s. This vibration level can easily
damage electronic components, and would also saturate the Inertial Measurement
Unit (IMU) making autonomous navigation and control virtually impossible. Students will need to design the box and
vibration isolation system to meet specifications in size, weight, and
vibration reduction. They will also need
to integrate the box into the structure of the helicopter. A professional RC helicopter test pilot will
be available to assist with flight test validations of the system.
Departments: ME
Confidentiality Concerns: None
Reporting Requirements: Weekly
+ mid semester and final presentation/report/video
Number of Groups: 1-2
Check these websites for video of our test pilot in action.
http://www.aero.psu.edu/videos/rchelo.mpg http://www.bergenrc.com/Observer.asp
RC
Helicopter in Flight