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2018

Design and Analysis of a Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial-Aquatic Vehicle


Abstract

In this paper, we describe the design and analysis of a fixed-wing unmanned aerial-aquatic vehicle. Inspired by prior work in aerobatic post-stall maneuvers for fixed-wing vehicles [1], we explore the feasibility of executing a water-to-air transition with a fixed-wing vehicle using almost entirely commercial off-the-shelf components (excluding the fuselage). To do this, we first propose a conceptual design based on observations about the dominant forces and dimensionless analysis. We then further refine this concept by building a design tool based on simplified models to explore the design space. To verify the results of the design tool, we use a higher fidelity model along with a direct hybrid trajectory optimization approach to show via numerical simulation that the water-to-air transition is feasible. Finally, we successfully test our design experimentally by hand-piloting a prototype vehicle through the water-to-air transition and discuss our approach for replacing the human-pilot with closed-loop control.

Citation

@inproceedingsMoore_2018 doi: 10.1109/icra.2018.8461240 url: https://doi.org/10.1109/icra.2018.8461240 year: 2018 month: may publisher: IEEE author: Moore Joseph and Fein Andrew and Setzler William title: Design and Analysis of a Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial-Aquatic Vehicle booktitle: 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)

Citation

@inproceedingsMoore_2018 doi: 10.1109/icra.2018.8461240 url: https://doi.org/10.1109/icra.2018.8461240 year: 2018 month: may publisher: IEEE author: Moore Joseph and Fein Andrew and Setzler William title: Design and Analysis of a Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial-Aquatic Vehicle booktitle: 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)