Capstone Design Project: Team UFO

Russ College of Engineering and Technology

School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)

Adam Schultz

Adam Farwick

Huafeng Liu

Matt Levine

Adviser : Dr. Jim Zhu

Project Goal:What is the UFO?

The UFO project has been an ongoing senior design project with the purpose of implementing, testing, and verifying the operation of an autopilot system known as trajectory linearization control (TLC). While the TLC autopilot has been verified through simulations, this project is tasked with real-world verification in a tangible object. This development of a navigation and guidance system for a field deploy-able unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) will occur on a tricopter.

How does it work?The TLC autopilot algorithms are written and then programmed to the

on-board flight computer. Upon initialization of the program, a platform on the hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) testing stand directly supporting the UFO will drop down to simulate the ground effect of vertical take-off. With increasing thrust from the motors, the UFO will create a force which is read by the JR3 load cell on the HITL platform. This translational data will be sent back to the UFO. The HiQ can then use this feedback to adjust and correct for any undesired changes.

Background:When the 2013-2014 design team began work on

The UFO, there were several underlying problems that were holding back completion of the final flight testing. The frame designed for the UFO in 2006 had undergone numerous cosmetic and structural changes over the years to support additional subsystems and modifications. Upon testing the flight capabilities in 2013, it was determined that the frame was not rigid enough for further testing. When the thrust of the three main propellers reached about 90% of its maximum, the frame would begin to vibrate and distort, and soon these oscillations would cause loss of control of the UFO.

Improvements:In order to continue progress on the UFO, it was decided that a new frame would have to be designed and fabricated to support the latest needs of the project. The new frame was designed to carry an on-board flight computer, with space for multiple sensors and motors. For this, a Y-shape frame was chosen, with the three main motors being equally spaced from one another. An additional arm was installed to support two fans to control yaw motion for the future development of 6 degrees of freedom. To meet weight requirements, the material chosen for construction was carbon fiber, with aluminum motor mounts where needed.

Future Development:With the frame fabrication completed, the team can now focus on other issues hindering flight status. An issue that will need to be resolved is a timeout encountered when transmitting data to the UFO computer via RS-232 wireless communication protocols. Furthermore, tuning will be underway soon to calibrate the UFO for the new frame.

TLC autopilot implementation in Simulink

2006 – 2013 UFO Frame

2014 UFO Frame (New)

HITL Testing Platform(with improved landing platform)

HI-Q Control Computer

Horizontal Fan and Yaw control

Vertical and Suitability Control Motor

LIPO Battery

JR3 Load Cell3 DOF Tuning (in progress)

JR3 load cell data

into HI-Q

6 DOF Trajectory

Control

JR3 Output

Wifi Antenna