Rotorcraft Handling Qualities and System Identification

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Kelly CohenGraduate Student: Mr. Wei Wei

June 18, 2012

MOST-AERO LabsMorphing and Optimization Systems Technology for Aerospace

Lab Director: Dr. Kelly Cohen (http://most-aero.uc.edu/)

Emergency Wildland Fire Management

Morphing UAV Intelligent ControlEducational Laboratory

MODUS VTOL UAV

Morphing Wings

System I.D. of VTOL UAV

Motivation & Operational Goals of UC’s UAV Rototcraft Program

• Exploiting available quadrotor technology for structural fire-fighting

• Capabilities include looking through windows of high rise buildings, seeing through smoke

• Incorporate the following:– Ease of operation– Safety – Night operations– Self preservation– Development of operation, training & maintenance

doctrines

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AR Parrot Quadrotor Drone - Description of main partshttp://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa

AR Parrot Quadrotor Drone - Description of main partshttp://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/

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Main Goals of the REU Program• System identification is a procedure by which a mathematical

description of vehicle or component dynamic behavior is extracted from test data.

• These simulation models are then used to predict dynamic behavior of the motion.

• The AR Parrot drone is a benchmark and serves as a simple and effective means to develop dynamic models and the appropriate controllers.

The main goal of this project is to apply state-of-the-art System Identification techniques to develop the dynamic model of the radio-controlled AR Parrot Quadrotor Drone system

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AR Drone

Power

Power

Data

Time History

Circuit Board

Quadrotor Flight Dynamics System Identification

Status – Generic system for system I.D. for fixed wing/VTOL UAV developed using CIFER®. The system is flying and taking data. Model validation is set for Summer 2012

Main Objectives of the REU Program

• Objective 1 – Students will study the flight characteristics of the AR drone which will include dynamics of rotorcraft and learning to fly this radio controlled air vehicle.

• Objective 2 – Students will utilize an experimental process called "System Identification" and the CIFER software to develop the dynamic model of the AR Parrot Quadrotor Drone.

• Objective 3 – Students will prepare a detailed engineering flight test and dynamic modeling report which will be presented to our collaborators in Industry (Modus Recte Inc).

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