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A Variable Forward-Sweepwing Design For Improved Perching in Micro Aerial Vehicles

This document proposes a variable forward-sweep wing design for micro aerial vehicles to improve perching capabilities. Wind tunnel experiments showed that a forward-swept wing produced more lift and lower pitching moments at high angles of attack compared to a straight wing. Simulations of perching trajectories found that the forward-swept wing configuration could achieve qualitatively different, lower-cost maneuvers than a straight wing. The results suggest a variable forward-sweep wing may enable better performance for micro aerial vehicles during challenging perching maneuvers.

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Rahul sasikumar
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51 views4 pages

A Variable Forward-Sweepwing Design For Improved Perching in Micro Aerial Vehicles

This document proposes a variable forward-sweep wing design for micro aerial vehicles to improve perching capabilities. Wind tunnel experiments showed that a forward-swept wing produced more lift and lower pitching moments at high angles of attack compared to a straight wing. Simulations of perching trajectories found that the forward-swept wing configuration could achieve qualitatively different, lower-cost maneuvers than a straight wing. The results suggest a variable forward-sweep wing may enable better performance for micro aerial vehicles during challenging perching maneuvers.

Uploaded by

Rahul sasikumar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A Variable Forward-SweepWing Design for

Improved Perching in Micro Aerial Vehicles


Zachary R. Manchester*

Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138

Jeffrey I. Lipton†

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139

Robert J. Wood‡ and Scott Kuindersma§

Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138

ABSTRACT
A micro aerial vehicle with a variable forward-sweep wing is proposed
with the goal of enhancing performance and controllability during high-
angle-of-attack perching maneuvers. Data is presented from a series of
wind tunnel experiments to quantify the aerodynamic effects of
forward sweep over a range of angles of attack from -25° to +75°. A
nonlinear dynamics model is constructed using the wind tunnel data to
gain further insight into aircraft flight dynamics and controllability.
Simulated perching trajectories optimized with a direct collocation
method indicate that the forward-swept wing configuration can achieve
qualitatively different lower-cost perching maneuvers than the straight
wing configuration.
MAIN POINTS
Fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that emulate the perching
capabilities of birds would offer the ability to take off and land within
very small spaces, travel long distances, and efficiently loiter for long
periods of time. Aircraft with this mix of capabilities have several
practical applications including search and rescue, disaster response,
agricultural inspection, and retrieval and delivery of terrestrial objects.
Perching maneuvers are challenging in several respects. First, they
involve flight at extremely high angles of attack in which the airflow
around the wings is nonlaminar and difficult to model. Second, aircraft
control surfaces typically have reduced effectiveness at low speed and
in post-stall conditions. Lastly, perching often entails flight in close
proximity to, and even in contact with, obstacles that could damage an
aircraft. Forward-swept wings have a number of characteristics that
make them well suited to agile flight at high angles of attack. All swept
wings have the property that their aft-most sections stall first [7]. In the
case of conventional back-swept wings, this corresponds to a stall
occurring at the wing tips, resulting in a loss of aileron control. In the
case of forward-swept wings, however, stall occurs first at the wing
root, leaving the ailerons fully effective. To take advantage of the
benefits of forward sweep during perching and other aggressive
maneuvers while maintaining passive stability and efficient gliding
during level flight, a variable-sweep wing is necessary.

In this paper we evaluate the effectiveness of forward-swept wing


designs on lightweight UAVs through a series of wind-tunnel and
simulation experiments. The data collected in these tests shows that
the forward-swept wing configuration has a higher peak lift coefficient
and lower pitching moment at high angles of attack, both of which are
beneficial in perching maneuvers. The numerical experiments show that
the forward-swept wing is capable of achieving “more optimal”
perching trajectories that require less actuator effort.
Variable-Sweep Wing Design
The starting point for our wing-morphing aircraft was the low-cost flat-
foam hobby aircraft shown in Figure 2, which has a wingspan of 42
centimeters and a mass of 37 grams. Several objectives guided the
design of the wing sweeping mechanism. First, we sought to make
minimal modifications to the original airplane. Second, the mechanism
needed to be extremely lightweight to minimize the impact on flight
performance. Lastly, we wanted to drive the mechanism with the same
small linear servos used to actuate the control surfaces on the airplane.
AERODYNAMIC COEFFICIENTS
Lift and drag coefficients for the straight and forward-swept
configurations of the model are plotted in Figure 8. The two wing
configurations have nearly identical lift and drag behavior at low angles
of attack. However, the forwardswept wing produces more lift (and
drag) at high angles of attack. At stall, the forward-swept wing produces
roughly 10% greater peak lift, allowing the aircraft to fly slower during
perching maneuvers. The moment coefficients for the two wing
configurations. While the straight-wing configuration exhibits uniformly
stable pitch behavior, indicated by the negative slope of the CM curve
[13], the forward-swept configuration is very weakly unstable at low
angles of attack, and produces much smaller pitching moments at high
angles of attack. While undesirable for straight-and-level flight, both of
these properties allow the aircraft to be trimmed for flight at high angles
of attack with minimal elevator input, avoiding actuator saturation and
maintaining greater control authority during perching.
PERCHING TRAJECTORIES
Perching trajectories were computed for both straight and forward-
swept wing configurations using identical costfunctions and
initializations, First, we note that the forward-swept wing configuration
achieved a lower-cost trajectory, with a cost of 311.3 compared to
390.7 for the straight wing. To ensure that this was not simply the
result of the straight-wing trajectory becoming trapped in a local
optimum, the optimization was repeated with the initial guess for the
straight-wing trajectory set to the lower-cost trajectory achieved by the
sweptwing airplane. Doing so made no difference in the results.

The variable-forward-sweep wing concept presented in this paper


shows potential for enhancing the agility and performance of micro
aerial vehicles. Our wind tunnel testing indicates that sweeping the
wings forward increases post-stall lift and can be used to impart a
pitching moment or alter the pitch stability characteristics of an aircraft.
While we did not observe an improvement in post-stall aileron
performance, this was likely due to the particular configuration of the
ailerons on our test aircraft. Design modifications and further testing
are needed to better understand these effects. Perching remains an
extremely difficult challenge for autonomous aircraft and an area
where birds can offer inspiration and, perhaps, some design guidance.
As suggested by avian behavior, our preliminary modeling and control
work indicates that a forward-swept wing may provide better
performance than a straight wing in such maneuvers. To gain further
insight into the dynamics in such extreme flight regimes, our next step
will be to reproduce these simulation results with indoor flight
experiments.

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