MAE 589 621 Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles

3 Credit Hours

There has been tremendous recent interest in multi-rotor aerial vehicles for Urban Air Mobility (or Advanced Air Mobility), to facilitate the movement of people, cargo, goods and packages in urban/suburban areas. This course covers aerodynamics, operation, flight controls, and key design elements of this class of vehicles. Additionally, special topics including interactional aerodynamic, acoustics, vibration, and fault-tolerance of these aircraft will also be covered. Students taking this course will gain an excellent overall understanding of multi-rotor aerial vehicle technologies, key analysis methods, and have a strong foundation to pursue research or employment in this exciting and dynamic field.

Prerequisite

This is a senior-level/introductory-graduate MAE course. Students should have senior level standing in Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering or permission of instructor.

Course Objectives

Students will develop an understanding of and analysis proficiency on the following topics:

Rotor Actuator Disk/Momentum Theory
Blade Element Theory in Hover
Hybrid Blade-Element Momentum Theory
Omega-Square Model
Blade Element Theory in Forward Flight
Individual Rotor and Multi-Rotor Controls for a Quadcopter
Multicopter Trim in Hover, Forward Flight, and Climb
Multi-Rotor Controls for Hexacopters and Octocopters
Rotor Sizing, and Fixed- and Variable-Pitch Multicopters
Flight Controllers for Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles
Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicle Performance
Special Topics: Interactional Aerodynamics
Special Topics: Acoustics of Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles
Special Topics: Vibratory Loads of Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles
Special Topics: Fault Tolerance of Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles

Course Requirements

Grades will be based on 6-7 homework assignments, worth a total of 50% of the total grade, with the remainder divided between a mid-term exam (25%) and a final exam (25%). Homework assignments will require computation, so competency with a programming language/environment (MATLAB, FORTRAN, C++, etc.) is expected. Students registered for the graduate version (MAE 589) will have additional problems on some homework assignments, an extra assignment, and additional take-home problems on exams.

Created: 7/18/2024