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PDM Project - Directional Ducted Propeller System

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Herjo Van Triest
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28 views3 pages

PDM Project - Directional Ducted Propeller System

Uploaded by

Herjo Van Triest
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Directional Propeller System

PDM Assignment

General assignment description


In general quadcopter designs, 4 upward facing motors are used to control its 6 degrees of
freedom which makes the drone underactuated. So in drone control, a drone has to tilt its body.
By controlling the direction of the propellers the drone is capable of moving without tilting its
body which is called thrust vectoring.

At DroneTeam Twente, a lot of different VTOL drones have been designed over the years,
which all have a similar set-up with 4 motors to enable the VTOL flight and 1 motor to enable
forward flight. This gives rise to 2 issues, namely:

1. Using 5 motors compared to 4 motors makes the drone heavier by default


2. To go forward and sideways, the drone has to tilt. As the drone has a very large
wingspan (up to 2.3m), this gives a lot of air resistance

Both of these issues can be mitigated by using a thrust-vectoring system to tilt the 4 motors.

Technical challenges
Highly rotating motors on a drone causes vibration on the drone moreover failure such as
fatigue in some parts. Meanwhile to maximise the efficiency, the weight of the parts should be
minimised. Recently DroneTeam Twente is mainly utilising FDM 3d printers with PETG and PLA
to manufacture however other materials and manufacturing processes can be considered.
Thrust vectoring control requires high precision which signifies accurately designed parts and
sufficient tolerance controls. Considering all the factors mentioned, firstly, flexure hinge is
proposed to allow tilting motion of drone arms. A flexure hinge has several advantages above
original hinges. It has almost zero friction which is difficult to predict and calculate in practice,
and it is made of one single piece which can minimise the assembly process. Furthermore, in
the control system aspect, flexure hinges can be way more precisely controlled which leads to
better stability of a drone. This flexure hinge is proposed to be manufactured by a metal 3D
printing which is already proven in the market.

Assignment deliverables & requirement


● A literature review on existing designs and the ideal angles for proper thrust-vectoring.
● Research existing thrust vectoring systems and how such a system scales down to the
size of a drone.
● A 3D-CAD design of the system(s) which allows all the required degrees of freedom
listed in the requirements.
● A physical prototype of the system which proves its feasibility.
● Detailed technical drawing of the system and its parts.

● A lightweight and compact design. Lightweight because it otherwise defeats the point of
losing the 5th motor and compact to limit the air resistance. This also means a precision
mechanism will have to be designed.
● At least 2 motors have to be able to tilt forward to allow for enough thrust in forward
flight.
● The 4 motors need to be able to tilt in a way that allows for flying in quadcopter mode
without needing to tilt the drone.

Optional challenge:
Making a tricopter system with thrust-vectoring. However, this would require a large design
change for DroneTeam and would not be compatible with current drones

Literature:
- https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/1.G005467
- https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/12/5561/pdf
Participating people
Participating member: - Gyeong Geun Lee
EMAIL: [email protected]
PHONE: +31 6 18925759

Technical Manager DroneTeam Twente: - Victor Andrei


EMAIL: [email protected]
PHONE: +1 650 977 9491

Team Manager DroneTeam Twente: - Herjo van Triest


EMAIL: [email protected]
PHONE: +31 6 19536299

Specifics on assignment
Assignment name
“Directional Propeller System”

Estimated Duration
Module(s): 1A - 1B

Deliverables
1. A literature review on existing designs and the ideal angles for proper thrust-vectoring.
2. A 3D-CAD design of the system(s) which allows all the required degrees of freedom
listed in the requirements.
3. A physical prototype of the system which proves its feasibility.
4. Detailed technical drawings of the system and its parts.

Product Development Minor


- Detail design (1.5EC—compulsory): This topic focuses on the detail design phase of
product design and development to define the complete specification of the geometry,
materials, and tolerances of parts through the provision of detail drawings and assembly
drawings, which can be issued to the manufacturing companies for precise manufacture
and assembly.
- Materials and manufacturing processes + workshops (2.5EC—compulsory): This topic is
about material and their manufacturability as well as manufacturing processes and their
capability for processing materials. It also includes material and manufacturing process
selection for a part.
- Design for machining (0.5EC—elective): This topic provides guidelines for designing parts
for machining.
- Design for additive manufacturing (0.5EC—elective): This topic provides guidelines for
designing parts for additive manufacturing.
- Design for injection moulding (0.5EC—elective): This topic provides guidelines for
designing parts for injection moulding.

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