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Performance and Testing of a Quad Rotor Biplane Micro Air Vehicle for Multi
Role Missions

Conference Paper · January 2014

DOI: 10.2514/6.2014-0727

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 Performance and Testing of a Quad Rotor Biplane
Micro Air Vehicle for Multi Role Missions
Vikram Hrishikeshavan∗ Christopher Bogdanowicz†
and Inderjit Chopra‡
Dept. of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742, MD, USA

It is useful to combine hover and forward flight capability of air vehicles into a hybrid
design. This paper discusses the development of one such hybrid air vehicle: Quadrotor
biplane. The proof-of-concept vehicle weighs 240 grams and consists of four propellers
with wings arranged in biplane configuration. The performance of the propeller-wing
was investigated in non-axial flow conditions through a systematic series of wind tunnel
experiments. The effect of the wing on propeller slipstream and vice versa significantly
changed the magnitude of vertical and horizontal forces when compared with the forces
produced by an isolated propeller. Accounting for these effects, trim analysis showed that
the maximum speed of 11 m/s at 0 deg shaft angle and a cruise speed of 4 m/s at 18 deg
shaft angle was achievable. The cruise power was approximately one-third of that required
for hover. Free flight testing of the proof-of-concept vehicle successfully showed feasibility
of vehicle to achieve equilibrium transition flight. In order to improve performance, a few
key design parameters such as airfoil profile, wing aspect ratio, biplane wing spacing and
offset between propeller axis and wing chord were also experimentally investigated. It was
found that a careful trade-off between efficiency and compactness affects the final choice of
the design.

I. Introduction
The potential applications for micro and unmanned air vehicles (M/UAVs) in areas of surveillance,
reconnaissance, weather monitoring and consumer delivery, to name a few, has increased greatly in the last
few years. Along with this, the rapid progress in micromechanics and microelectronics has brought about
significant interest in the development of unammed air systems that can accomplish such tasks. For many of
these missions, aerial systems are required to have the ability to hover as well as rapidly transit between two
locations. Most of the existing micro air vehicles can be broadly classified into fixed-wing and rotary-wing
type. Fixed wing MAVs can efficiently perform high cruise-speed missions. However, rotary wing MAVs are
more suited for low speed loiter and hover tasks. Therefore it is of practical interest to combine the fixed
and rotary wing capabilities into a single hybrid air system (Fig. 1).
Various hybrid UAV configurations have been explored in the past such as tail sitters [1–3], tilt-wing,
tilt-rotor, fan-in-wing and others [4–7]. The advantages of tilt-rotor, tilt-wing and fan-in-wing configurations
are that the fuselage orientation remains fixed in VTOL and forward flight mode. However, these systems are
mechanically complex involving multiple moving parts. The tail sitter configuration is simpler in construction
and the entire body tilts as the vehicle transitions from hover to forward flight. These involve the operation
of single or multiple propellers in conjuntion with aerodynamic surfaces that are activated in the downwash
of the propellers to generate pitching moments for maneuvering in the various flight modes. However, for
adequate control forces, high propwash velocites are required. This may not be desirable for lightweight MAV
designs. Additionally, efficiency in hover mode would deteriorate significantly at these high disk loadings.
Therefore, a quadrotor-biplane configuration is proposed (Fig. 2) as an alternate hybrid MAV design concept.
The advantages of this configuration are: (1) the maneuverability of a quad rotor is utilized in hover, (2)
∗ AssistantResearch Scientist, AIAA Student Member
† Undergraduate Research Assistant
‡ Alfred Gessow Professor and Director, AIAA Fellow

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Figure 1: Hybrid air systems can be used to per- Figure 2: Conceptual design of quad rotor bi-
form multiple roles in a single mission plane MAV

pitching moments to enter and come out of transition is generated entirely by the relatively large control
authority offered by differential rotor thrust, (3) increased compactness with biplane configuration, and (4)
simple construction.
The utility of these systems is greatly improved if the transition maneuver from hover to forward flight
can be achieved in a smooth manner without any loss of altitude (Fig. 3). This is referred to as equilibrium
transtition and it implies that the forces and moments are balanced at every stage of transition. Experimental
and numerical studies have been conducted in the past to study equilibrium transition of tail sitters [8–12].
However, systematic studies on the performance of micro-scale wing-propeller systems in non-axial flow have
been limited. In this paper these issues are addressed which can be important in the understanding and
implementation of design and control laws for these class of vehicles. Additionally the paper explores a
couple of important design parameters pertinent to the proposed vehicle design that can be later used for
comprehensive design analysis.
The outline of the paper is as follows. A brief description of the vehicle design and integration is initially
provided. The performance results of the propeller-wing system in axial and non-axial flow from a series of
wind tunnel tests are discussed. Following this, the conditions to achieve equilibrium transition are extracted.
A few important design parameters such as choice of airfoil profile, wing aspect ratio, biplane wing spacing
and propeller-wing offset are also systematically investigated. Finally, a brief description of constrained and
free flight testing of the quad biplane vehicle to achieve transition flight is given.

II. Proof-of-Concept Design and Integration

The conceptual design of the wing is shown in Fig. 2. A proof-of-concept vehicle was constructed using the
proposed design. It consists of two pairs of counter rotating propellers arranged in a quadrotor configuration.
Two wings are affixed to each pair of rotors through a set of attachments. The battery and onboard
microcontroller are incorporated in the center of the vehicle. Figure 4 shows the complete construction of
the vehicle. The wings were constructed from low density polyurethane foam using a high lift, low Reynolds
number airfoil (S1223). The wing chord was aligned along the propeller axis. The wing span and aspect ratio
are 22” and 5.5 respectively and are spaced about 10” apart. The propellers were chosen to be 2 bladed 6-in
6×5 propellers due to their relatively satisfactory hover (power loading = 12 gram/W) and forward flight
performance (max efficiency in axial flow = 0.67). The gross weight of the vehicle is about 240 grams.

III. Performance of the Propeller-Wing System

The quad rotor biplane will have to operate in various flight modes: hover, forward flight and transition.
Therefore it is important to investigate the aerodynamic performance of the propeller-wing system at various
stages of transition: from 90 deg (helicopter mode) to 0 deg (fixed-wing mode). Wind tunnel testing of the
complete vehicle would prove cumbersome due to wind tunnel contraction effects. Therefore, assuming
minimal interaction effects between the propellers, a single propeller with a proportionally scaled wing
(11” span, 4” chord) is considered which represents exactly one quarter of the vehicle in terms of size and
force requirements. The gross weight of the integrated vehicle is 240 grams which results in vertical force

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Figure 3: Equilibrium transition from hover to
forward flight Figure 4: Vehicle Integration

requirements for a single propeller-wing system to be 0.6N.

This section discusses performance results from the following experiments: (1) isolated propeller tested
in non-axial flow, (2) propeller and wing system tested in non-axial flow, and (3) trim analysis

A. Isolated propeller in non-axial flow

Based on the vehicle design operation, it is important to study the performance of the propeller at various
angles of transition between these modes. From these, the key differences that may arise when a wing is
added to the propeller system can be extracted as well. Fig. 5 shows a schematic of the forces generated by a
propeller in non-axial flow. It can be expected that the components of the force in the vertical and horizontal
direction differ significantly between the wind-on and wind-off cases. Figure 6 shows the experimental setup
to measure propeller performance in non-axial flow. A six component force transducer was attached to
one end of the propeller shaft and motor. The forces were resolved perpendicular (vertical) and parallel
(horizontal) to the mean flow velocity and the mechanical power required to drive the propeller was also
measured. The wind speed was varied from 0 to 10 m/s and the shaft angles ranged from 0 to 90 degrees in
6 degree increments.

Figure 5: Forces produced by propeller in non- Figure 6: Setup to measure propeller perfor-
axial flow mance in non-axial flow

Figure 7 shows variation of vertical and horizontal forces with wind speed at two different shaft angles at
6500 RPM. It can be seen that close to helicopter mode (84 deg), the variation of the forces with wind speed
is not significant. However as the shaft angle reduces, the component of inflow through the propeller disk
increases. Consequently, the horizontal force decreases significantly with wind speed at 6 deg shaft angle.
Additionally if we compare the power required to generate a given vertical force (Fig. 8) we can see that the
power requirements increase signficantly. For example, in hover mode, 4.2 W is required to produce 0.6 N
of vertical force whereas up to 8.4 W is required at a 42 deg angle. Therefore in order to move rapidly in an
efficient manner, lift augmentation is required.

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 Vertical
1 Horizontal
1
Vertical
0.8 Horizontal 0.8

Force (N)
Force (N)

0.6 0.6

0.4 RPM ~ 6500 0.4

RPM ~ 6500

0.2 0.2

0 0

-0.2 -0.2
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Wind Speed (m/s) Wind Speed (m/s)

(a) Shaft angle: 84 deg (b) Shaft angle: 6 deg

Figure 7: Variation of force with wind speed at 6500 RPM

B. Propeller-wing system in non-axial flow

In order to measure the combined effect of propeller and wing operating at various stages of transition, the
experimental setup was modified as shown in Fig. 9. The wing was installed such that the chord was parallel
to the propeller rotation axis. The offset betweem plane of the propeller and leading edge of the wing was
about 1.5”. The rest of the conditions were maintained the same as in the isolated propeller tests. It is noted
that when the upstream flow is initiated, the tare values were removed prior to turning on the propeller.
Hence the measured forces are the pure effect of operating the propeller with a wing in its downwash in the
presence of external flow at various shaft angles.

1.2
90 deg
1 42 deg
12 deg
Vertical Force (N)

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Mechanical Power (W)

Figure 9: Setup to measure performance of

Figure 8: Vertical force variation with mechani- propeller-wing system for various shaft angles
cal power at 7.4 m/s wind speed and wind speeds

Figure 10 compares the forces produced by the isolated propeller and propeller-wing system at various
shaft angles with a wind speed and propeller RPM of 6.2 m/s and 6500 RPM respectively. For purposes
of clarity, results for other conditions are excluded but it is noted that the trends remain similar. It can
be seen that the vertical force production for the propeller-wing case is uniformly greater than that for the
isolated propeller, while the horizontal forces are lower. Again, it is noted that the effect of pure wing lift and
wing-body drag is removed from these results. These significant differences may possibly be explained by
the effect of propeller slipstream on wing and vice versa. In non-axial flow conditions, the momentum of the
upstream flow is changed in both magnitude and direction by the induced flow generated by the propeller.
However, if a wing is placed in the downwash, the direction of the upstream momentum is changed to a

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greater extent (Fig. 11) due to the presence of the wing surface. As a result, the magnitude of the force
perpendicular to the propeller shaft increases. Another factor is the effect of propeller slipstream on the
forces generated by the wing which induces an increase in velocity over a portion of the wing surface. A
combination of these effects may be responsible for the significant differences in the forces as seen in Fig. 10.

1.4

1.2

0.8
Force (N)

0.6

0.4

0.2
Vertical - with wing
0
Vertical - no wing
-0.2 Horizontal - with wing
Horizontal - no wing
-0.4
0 20 40 60 80
Shaft angle (deg)

Figure 10: Comparison in forces between isolated

and propeller-wing system at 6.2 m/s wind speed
and 6500 RPM Figure 11: Effect of wing on propeller slipstream

C. Trim Analysis
The performance results discussed previously can be used to determine the forward flight capabilities of the
complete system. In order to achieve equilibrium transition, the forces as shown in Fig. 12 would have to be
balanced at each stage of transition (or shaft angle, α). After accounting for the tare forces (wing lift and
bluff body drag), estimates of velocity and required propeller RPM at various shaft angles can be obtained
from an analysis of trim conditions based on the wind tunnel measurements. Figure 13 shows the speed
that is achieved at different stages of equilibrium transition. A steady monotonic decrease in wind speed
as a function of shaft angle can be seen. At a shaft angle of about 6 degrees, the vehicle should travel at
about 7 m/s to achieve trim. At 0 degrees, a minimum velocity of 11 m/s is required for trimmed flight.
Extrapolation of the velocity-angle curve indicates that for hover, the shaft angle is between 84-90 degrees
which correlates well with observations from free flight hover tests. Based on the propeller RPM variation,
the required power for trimmed flight can also be extracted and is shown in Fig. 14. While the hover power
is 5 W, it drops to as low as 1.5 W at a speed of about 4-4.5 m/s. This is about one-third decrease in power
required when compared to the hover condition.

IV. Effect of Design Parameters

The basic performance, power requirements and feasibility of the wing propeller system in non-axial
flow conditions was described previously. In this section, a few design choices that would influence system
performance are systematically investigated, such as (1) airfoil profile, (2) wing aspect ratio, (3) wing spacing
in biplane configuration, and (4) offset of propeller shaft axis relative to wing chord. These can then be
exapanded for a more comprehensive design investigation.

A. Airfoil Selection
For the given design, the vehicle would be operating at low Reynolds number regimes with large variations
in angles of incidence in its flight profile as well as incorporating low aspect ratio wings. Therefore, it is very
important to choose an efficient airfoil profile. A few candidate low Reynolds number airfoils that produced
high CL and CL /CD values (at Re 50,000) were chosen from the UIUC airfoil database. These are shown
in Fig. 15

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 12

10

Wind speed (m/s)

8

6
Steady level flight

0
0 20 40 60 80
Shaft angle (deg)

Figure 12: Propeller-wing system in steady level Figure 13: Variation of wind speed with shaft
flight angle for steady level flight

10

8
Mechanical Power (W)

4
18 deg
3 shaft angle

1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Wind Speed (m/s)

Figure 14: Power requirement in trim at different Figure 15: Low Reynolds number airfoils chosen
forward flight speeds for performance comparison

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 • Selig S1223: This is a high lift low Reynolds number airfoil (Fig. 15 a) with a maximum thickness of
12.1% and a camber of 8.1%.
• Gottingen GOE225: The Gottingen 225 airfoil is shown in (Fig. 15 b) with a maximum thickness of
12.8% and camber of 7.6%. As can be seen, this is similar to the S1223 airfoil.
• Wortmann FX63-100: As can be seen from (Fig.15 c), the maximum thickness-to-chord is lower (about
9.9%) and the camber is 4.3%.
In order to measure the performance of the airfoils, an experimental test stand was implemented as
shown in Fig. 16. The stand consists of a variable angle base plate that is divided into 180 degrees in 3
deg. increments. The rotating and non-rotating plates were locked at desired angle settings using a lock
pin. Wings with the specific airfoil profiles were machined out of extruded polypropylene and a quarter inch
aluminum rod was installed at quarter chord along the length of the wing. Due to the low density of the
wing material, there was a tendency for the wing to exhibit flutter during tests. Therefore, the dimensions
of the rod were carefully chosen to prevent flutter and undesirable vibrations. A coupling piece was used
to interface the 6DOF load sensor and the rotating base-plate with the aluminum rod. The test stand was
then mounted in front of the open jet wind tunnel as shown in Fig.17. The wings had an aspect ratio of
about 3.8 (17” × 4.5”). Care was also taken to place the wing within the 180 wind tunnel contraction zone.
The wind speed was varied from 0 to 10 m/s with an angle sweep from −300 to 450 in steps of 30 . The
lift and drag measurements for each airfoil section, wind speed and angle of attack was averaged from three
measurements. The measurement errors for wind speed and forces were about 0.1 m/s, 0.02 N respectively.
For comparison, the lift and drag measurements were non-dimensionalized into the lift and drag coefficients.
It should be noted that these coefficients are calculated for the wing and do not represent the 2-D values. A
comparison between different aspect ratios is performed later to evaluate 3-D effects.

Figure 16: Experimental setup to measure airfoil Figure 17: Airfoil test stand placed in front of
performance open jet wind tunnel

The variation in lift coefficient as a function of angle of incidence for the three airfoils is shown in Fig. 18.
For each airfoil, lift coefficient at two different Reynolds numbers (21,000 and 45,000) are shown. It can be
clearly seen that for all the airfoil cases, there was no evidence of abrupt stall. The highly cambered S1223
and GOE225 exhibited non-linear variation in lift as a function of angle of incidence and also attained higher
values of CL . The mildly cambered FX-63 had a more linear variation in lift upto 120 angle of incidence and
a subsequent gradual increase in lift. The lift produced by the airfoils was noticeably greater at the higher
Reynolds number of 45,000.
The lift and drag coefficient variation is compared for the three airfoils at Re = 45,000 and is shown in
Fig. 19. As can be seen from Fig. 22a the 8.1% cambered S1223 airfoil consistently produced higher lift at all
angles of attack. However, the drag for the FX-63 airfoil was the least as shown in Fig. 22b. Based on the
drag polar plot (Fig. 19c it can be seen that the FX-63 had the best performance (maximum CL /CD ≈ 6)
when compared with the other airfoils (max CL /CD ≈ 3.8). It must be mentioned that during actual vehicle
operation, most of the wing operates within the propeller downwash. Therefore it is important to choose
an efficient airfoil with low drag characteristics without compromising on the lift capability. Based on the
above results, the FX-63 airfoil was chosen for further investigation.

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 0.8 0.8
Re = 21000 Re = 21000
Re = 45000 Re = 45000
0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

CL
CL

0.2
0.2

0
0

-0.2
-0.2
-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40  (deg)
 (deg)

(a) S1223 airfoil (b) GOE225 airfoil

0.8
Re = 21000
Re = 45000
0.6

0.4
CL

0.2

-0.2

-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40



(c) FX-63 airfoil

Figure 18: Comparison in CL between the airfoil profiles at two different Re numbers

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 0.8 0.5

0.6 0.4

0.4
0.3

D
CL

C
0.2
0.2

0
FX63-100 0.1 FX63-100
S1223 S1223
-0.2
GOE225 GOE225
0
-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
 (deg)  (deg)

(a) CL vs. α (b) CD vs. α

0.8

0.6

0.4
CL

0.2

FX63-100
-0.2
S1223
GOE225
-0.4
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
C
D

(c) CL vs. CD

Figure 19: Comparison in airfoil performance at Re = 45,000

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B. Effect of aspect ratio
One of the concerns in the vehicle design is the trade-off between efficiency and compactness as illustrated in
Fig. 20. Incorporating a low aspect ratio wing has the advantage of being more compact but its performance
is expected to be lower than a wing with higher aspect ratio. While the trade-off in compactness is clear, the
differences in performance at these low Reynolds number regimes is less obvious. Therefore, the performance
of a few representative wings with aspect ratios 3.8 (original), 2.4 and 1 (Fig. 21) was measured and compared.
The wing area was maintained at 76.5 in2 . The experimental setup shown in Figs. 16 and 17 were used for
the aspect ratio tests as well.

Figure 20: Wing aspect ratio choice: trade-off between efficiency and compactness

Figure 21: Wings tested with different aspect ratios

Figure 22 shows the variation of CL with α for two different wind speeds and wings with aspect ratios
1 and 2.4. The CL − α variation for the 3.8 aspect ratio wing is shown in Fig. 18c. It can be seen that
the CL − α slope increases with aspect ratio as expected. It must be mentioned that since the Reynolds
number is based on wing chord, the lower aspect ratio wing operates at higher Re for the same wind speed.
This could probably explain the higher values of CL at lower aspect ratios for a given wind speed. The drag
polars are compared in Fig. 23a at similar Re. It can be clearly seen that the performance improves as aspect
ratio increases. However, the difference in performance between AR=2.4 and AR=3.8 wings appears to be
less significant. From a vehicle operation perspective, it is more meaningful to compare performance at the
same wind speed (instead of Re). As can be seen from Fig. 23b the differences in performance between the
larger aspect ratio wings is negligible. Therefore it can be argued that from a standpoint of compactness
and efficiency, a wing with aspect ratio of 2.4 can be incorporated.

C. Wing spacing
Since the vehicle operates in a biplane configuration, it is also important to measure the effect of wing spacing
on the lift and drag produced. In order to do this, two FX-63 wings with an aspect ratio of 2.4 (wing chord
= 5.6 in) were chosen and attached to coupling struts and system was then mounted in front of the open jet

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 0.8 0.8

0.6
0.6
AR = 1 AR = 2.4
0.4
0.4
L

0.2
C

L
0.2

C
0
0

-0.2
Re = 41000, V = 2.9 m/s
-0.2
Re = 88000, V = 6.2 m/s Re = 26000, V = 2.9 m/s
-0.4 Re = 57000, V = 6.2 m/s
-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 -0.4
 (deg) -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50
 (deg)

(a) Aspect Ratio = 1 (b) Aspect Ratio = 2.4

Figure 22: CL vs. α comparison at different wind speeds

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4
CL

CL

0.2 0.2
V~6 m/s

0 0

AR = 3.8, Re = 37150 AR = 3.8

-0.2 -0.2
AR = 2.4, Re = 36000 AR = 2.4
AR = 1, Re = 41000 AR = 1
-0.4 -0.4
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
C C
D
D

(a) Similar Re (b) Similar wind speed

Figure 23: Drag polar comparison

Figure 24: Wings mounted in biplane configuration to study effect of wing spacing on forces produced

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wind tunnel as shown in Fig. 24. The wing spacing, r, was varied from 7” to 11” in steps of 1” and both
the wing chords were installed parallel to each other. The angle of incidence and wind speed variation were
the same as that for the previous experiments. The net lift and drag of the system were measured as shown
in Fig. 24. The drag force from the exposed linkages were carefully removed from the total forces through
a separate set of tare tests. It must be noted that since both the wings were pivoted about a central point,
a change in angle of incidence would result in a negative stagger (top wing behind the bottom wing). This
was intended to simulate actual vehicle operating conditions.
Lift and drag coefficients were extracted from the measured forces using the total biplane wing area.
Figure 25 shows the net lift and drag coefficient variation with angle of incidence for the biplane configuration
and different wing spacings. For clarity, results for three wing spacings are shown. It can be clearly seen that
the effect of decreased wing spacing is to reduce lift (Fig. 25a). For example, at an angle of incidence of 100 ,
the lift produced with 7” spacing is about 15% lower than that for the 11” spacing. However the differences
in drag are negligible. The performance difference can also be seen from the drag polar plot (Fig. 25c). From
a comparison between Figs. 23b and 25c it is also interesting to observe that the net lift coefficient for the
biplane configuration with 11” spacing is only about 10% lower than that produced by a single wing. Based
on the above observations, a wing spacing of at least 1.5c is desirable, where c is the wing chord. However, if
a low aspect ratio wing (higher wing chord) is required, such wing spacing constraints may not be met and
a trade-off in efficiency is to be expected.

0.6

0.4
0.5
0.35
0.4
0.3

0.3 0.25
CD
CL

0.2
0.2
7 in 0.15
0.1 11 in.
9 in. 0.1
7 in
0 0.05 9 in.
11 in.
0
-0.1 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50
-10 0 10 20 30 40 50 


(a) CL vs.α (b) CD vs.α

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3
CL

0.2

0.1 7 in
9 in.
0
11 in.

-0.1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
C
D

(c) CL vs.CD

Figure 25: Effect of wing spacing on performance (wind speed = 6 m/s)

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D. Propeller shaft offset
It was seen earlier that the interaction effects between the propeller and wing are significant. In the design
space considered in this study, the effect of offset between propeller shaft and wing chord on the forces
generated are studied. Other parameters such as offset between propeller plane and wing leading edge and
direction of propeller rotation will be investigated in the future.
The offset is defined as the perpendicular distance between the propeller shaft and wing chord as shown
in Fig. ??. The setup was tested for the following shaft axis placements: (1) 1 inch below wing chord, (2)
along wing chord, and (3) 1 inch above wing chord. The propeller RPM and shaft angle were varied from
2000 RPM to 5000 RPM and from 00 to 450 respectively. The forces measured by the load sensor were
resolved perpendicular (Lift) and parallel (Thrust) to the mean free stream velocity. For purposes of clarity,
the results are shown in dimensional form for a wind speed of 6 m/s and a few shaft angles. It is noted that
for these tests, it was desired to have the entire wing within the downwash of the propeller. As a result, for
a 6” diameter prop, an FX63 wing with dimensions of 6” span × 4.5” chord was tested.

Figure 26: Investigation of offset between propeller shaft axis and wing chord on forces produced

In Fig. ??, the effect of offset on thrust and lift are shown for three different shaft angles at 6 m/s is
shown. It can be seen that for all offset values, as observed earlier the net thrust reduces and net lift increases
as shaft angle is increased. It is interesting to note that for almost all cases, when the propeller is positioned
above the wing chord, the thrust and lift produced are lower. At a shaft angle of 300 and propeller RPM of
4000, when the propeller is placed 1” above wing chord, the lift produced is about 10% lower than that for
the other positions. However the difference between 0” and -1” offset appears to be less significant. Overall,
the placement of the propeller axis along wing chord provides best performance.

V. Flight Testing
The previous sections discussed the aerodynamic performance of the propeller-wing system in non-axial
flow and influence of a few key design parameters. It was seen that the propeller-wing system could generate
adequate forces for level transition flight from helicopter to forward flight mode. In order to verify the
feasibility of the quad biplane configuration to perform the transition maneuver, flight testing of the vehicle
was performed. The vehicle configuration as shown in Fig. was used for flight testing purposes. The control
system development and implementation is described in further detail in [13].

A. Control Methodology
In order to augment stability and for transition flight control, a lightweight onboard avionics platform is
integrated in the vehicle. The principal components of the board are a TI MSP430 microprocessor for
onboard computation tasks, tri-axial gyroscopes and accelerometers, and an ATMEL radio and antenna for
wireless communication tasks. Since the vehicle undergoes large changes in pitch angles of upto 90 degrees, a

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 Shaft angle: 0 0 Shaft angle: 18 0 Shaft angle: 30 0

0.4 0.4 0.4

Thrust(N)

0.2 0.2 0.2

0 0 0

-0.2 -0.2 -0.2

2000 3000 4000 5000 2000 3000 4000 5000 2000 3000 4000 5000
1 inch above chord
along chord
1 inch below chord

0.4 0.4 0.4

Lift(N)

0.2 0.2 0.2

0 0 0
2000 3000 4000 5000 2000 3000 4000 5000 2000 3000 4000 5000
RPM RPM RPM

Figure 27: Effect of propeller offset on forces at 6m/s wind speed

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quaternion based feedback controller was implemented. Here, the feedback states included the body rotation
rates and the four quaternion parameters [13].

B. Hover Testing
The quaternion based controller was tested for its ability to maintain stable hover. A proportional derivative
controller was implemented with the quaternion and attitude rate states held close to zero. As measured
from the wind tunnel experiments, a lateral force was generated due to the effect of propeller slipstream over
the wing surface. To counteract this, slight adjustments to shaft angles were made and as can be seen from
Fig. 28, satisfactory hover flight was obtained.

Figure 29: Setup to allow for pitch attitude vari-

ation from hover to forward flight mode, pitch
Figure 28: Quad rotor biplane in hover and roll degree of freedom provided

0.6 0.5
Command
Command
0.4 0 Response
Pitch,  2
2

6.7 deg/s


Roll,  1
-0.5
0.2
Response to commad

-1
0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

-0.2 0.5
Command
-0.4 0 Response
2


-0.6
-0.5 16.7 deg/s

-1
-0.8 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Time (s)
Time (s)

(a) Step input (b) Ramp input

Figure 30: Response to inputs in transition

C. Transition Flight Testing

The performance of the controller to non-zero pitch inputs was investigated through a systematic series of
bench top tests. Figure 29 shows the quad rotor biplane mounted on a pitch bearing. The response of the
vehicle to control inputs is shown in Fig. 30. As can be seen, there is a good tracking of the command
in pitch (red) while the roll (green) response is negligible. The response of the controller was seen to be
satisfactory. Finally, free flight transition was performed with the vheicle initially being flown in hover
position. Subsequently, the pilot issued a gradual pitch forward command. The throttle was held close to
the hover value throughout the transition. The vehicle transitioned smoothly and quickly from helicopter
to forward flight mode within about 2 seconds. It went on to proceed in forward flight mode at an average

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speed of about 7 m/s. The sequence of events is shown in Fig. 31. The observed flight speed seemed to agree
reasonably with the expected velocity from wind tunnel measurements.

Figure 31: Sequence of hover, transition and forward flight mode during flight testing

VI. Conclusions
This paper discusses the performance and flight testing of a quad rotor biplane micro air vehicle that
is designed to operate in helicopter as well as in forward flight mode. In particular, investigation of non-
axial flow conditions and key design parameters on the aerodynamic performance of the vehicle system was
conducted through a systematic series of bench-top wind tunnel experiments. The proof-of-concept vehicle
weighs about 240 grams and the biplane wings have a span and chord of about 22 in and 4 in respectively,
and are separated by 10 in. Succesful level transition flights were obtained with a steady pitch input and
the propeller RPM held constant.
Measurements revealed significant interaction effects between propeller and wing at all angles of tran-
sition. The vertical force produced by the propeller-wing system was uniformly higher. This difference
could be attributed to the effect of wing on propeller slipstream and vice versa. Trim analysis showed that
The maximum speed and cruise speed achievable by the proof-of-concept system were 11 m/s and 4 m/s
respectively. The maximum power required during curise is approximately one-third of that required for
hover.
Effect of a few design parameters on performance were investigated such as airfoil profile, wing aspect
ratio, biplane wing spacing and offset between propeller shaft and wing chord. A comparison between three
relatively efficient high lift low Reynolds number airfoil showed that the 4.5% camber FX-63 airfoil had
the best efficiency at low angles of attack. It was found that the difference in performance between wings
with aspect ratios of 3.8 and 2.4 was found to be negligible. A biplane wing spacing of at least 1.5c may
be required to have least impact on performance. However, if a low aspect ratio wing (higher wing chord)
is required, such wing spacing constraints may not be met and a trade-off in efficiency is to be expected.
Finally, it was seen that placement of the propeller axis along the wing chord provided the best performance.
The above design space can be further expanded and made comprehensive for future design optimization
studies.

VII. Acknowledgements
References
1 Stone, R.H., Anderson, P., Hutchison, C., Tsai, A., Gibbens, P., and Wong, K.C., “Flight Testing of the T-Wing Tail-

Sitter Unmanned Air Vehicle,” Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 45, No. 2, 2008, pp. 673-685.
2 Frank, A., McGrew, J.S., Valenti, M., Levine, D., and How, J.P., “Hover, Transition, and Level Flight Control Design

for a Single-Propeller Indoor Airplane,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference and Exhibit, Hilton Head, South
Carolina, AIAA Paper 2007-6318, 2007.
3 Kubo, D. and Suzuki, S., “Tail-Sitter Vertical Takeoff and Landing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle: Transitional Flight Anal-

ysis,” Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 45, No. 1, 2008, pp. 292-297.

4 Satoshi, S, Ren, Z., Yoshikazu, H., Kenzo, N., Gaku, K., Toshio, B., Daisuke, H., Mituhiro, F., and Kenta Y., “Attitude

Control of Quad Rotors QTW-UAV with Tilt Wing Mechanism,” Journal of System Design and Dynamics, Vol. 4, No. 3, 2010,
pp.416-428.

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 5 Hrishikeshavan, V., and Chopra, I., “Design and Control of a Tilt-Wing Micro Air Vehicle in Hover,” American Helicopter

Society 68th Annual Forum, Fort Worth, Texas, May 2012.

6 Mahadik, R., Karpatne, A., and Sirohi.J., “Design and Testing of a Morphing Micro Aerial Vehicle,” American Helicopter

Societys International Specialists Meeting on Unmanned Rotorcraft and Network Centric Operations, Phoenix, AZ, Jan 25-27,
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7 Icarus Labs Webpage: www.icaruslabs.org
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Journal of Micro Air Vehicles , Vol. 3, No. 4, 2011, pages 229-245.

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of Aircraft , Vol. 45, No. 1, 2008, pp. 198-210.

10 Kuhn, R. E., and Draper, J. W., “An Investigation of a WingPropeller Configuration Employing Large-Chord Plain

Flaps and Large- Diameter Propellers for Low-Speed Flight and Vertical Take-Off,” NACA TN-3307, 1954.
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Hover Flight Conditions,” Computer Modeling and Simulation in Engineering, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1997, pp. 304321.
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Aerodynamics Conference, San Francisco, CA, AIAA Paper 2006-3466 , 2006.

13 Hrishikeshavan, V., Bawek, D., Rand, O., and Chopra, I., “Control of a Quad Rotor Biplane Micro Air Vehicle in

Transition from Hover to Forward Flight,” American Helicopter Society Specialists Meeting on Unmanned Rotorcraft and
Network Centric Operations, January 22-25, 2013.

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