28/04/16

Assignment 1 Unit 16 Task 2

Joshua Dunn

VTOL UAV & Docking Station for Automated Aerial Transport

The Purpose of this machine is for automated aerial transport of small packages and is
optimized for maximum range and payload capability. The innovative design makes use of
benefits of both multi-rotors and fixed-wing aeroplanes. For take-off and landing, the Vertical
Aircraft hovers like a quadrotor and for forward flight, the Vertical Aircraft still working on the
name pitches 90 and flies like an aeroplane.

An example of this design would do for transporting parcels:

I feel this will meet the user requirements because it will be able to deliver packages that
weigh 1kg to people and be able to make the deliveries on time and be able to survey the
area in 32 km range.
In airplane mode, the attitude is also controlled by differential thrust of the motors. Therefore,
no additional control surfaces are required, reducing the number of moving parts, risk of
failure and maintenance cost. The structure is made out of three carbon fibre tubes in a Hconfiguration allowing an easy accessible space for a 10x15x20 cm package of 1kg.
The tubes are connected using laser cut multiplex wood and wings are constructed using a
polystyrene-balsa sandwich structure, covered with Oracover material. For a good
directional stability, the wings are slightly swept-back and winglets, that also help reducing
the induced drag, are added. Since the wings introduce a high moment of inertia and strong
moments because of wind around the yaw-axis, the propellers are tilted 10 to improve the
yaw control.
As shown by the picture underneath it will give a better understanding of what it looks like
and capable of doing:

28/04/16

Assignment 1 Unit 16 Task 2

Joshua Dunn

The picture below shows that its capable of carrying a package weighing of 1kg

In order to have a fully autonomous system, Ive also developed a docking system. The
system includes an optical precision lading system, based on a PX4FLOW unit and a
docking station at which a package or battery can be swapped.
The picture below is showing you the unit thats in the design that Ive made:

Im programming the
VTOL with the programming
language called C++ to
tell it what to do. Hopefully when its finally finished it will be automated to do the stuff that I

28/04/16

Assignment 1 Unit 16 Task 2

Joshua Dunn

want it to do because its still in the beta design Im making improvements on it to make in
handle harsh winds because it made it very difficult to land and fly in them conditions.
Like I said in the previous sentence its still in beta so it wont be done yet with the coding still
adding little bits to the program until then I wont be releasing the programs commands that
its using to get the feedback from other people.
I havent yet been able to test the full performance of the Vertical Aircraft because of the
limited test area where I can fly. During test flights I experienced a lot of influence of the wind
on the big wings, making automatic landings very hard.
Pretty much the test plan is going to see if it can fly and able to land while the package is still
in the design and to see if it can fly far enough that it wont go out of its range because like I
said Im still working on the design adding new stuff to it.
Restrictions

I had to change the wings a few times because of the weather I had that either
damaged the wings or completely took them off.
I had to add more propellers as well because two of them wasnt working for the
original design it would hardly take off and to be able to fly with package as well.
Initial design of this aircraft had to be changed a few times because the initial design
was not suiting the needs for the carry section in the aircraft so I had to completely
scrap the design and think again.

Why I have designed this system the way it is because I feel that the old design wasnt
suiting the needs of carrying the package to specific location so I changed the design to
meet the requirements for the carrying section and the design overtime changed because at
the beginning of the second design I had to add more propellers to the design because the
weight of the 1kg package was too heavy for the aircraft to take off with it and also flying with
it as well. I also added more wings to the second design that way it would help with the
carrying the package.