Abstract
A detailed technical design and performance comparison of current unmanned Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) vehicles is presented as a function of vehicle maximum speed, payload, range, endurance, and propulsion configurations. Mission applications and VTOL market characteristics are used to define design specifications for a new prototype unmanned VTOL vehicle suitable for a wide range of (mostly) civilian applications. The proposed VTOL vehicle's design phase is presented, including: performance capabilities calculation, fuselage strength evaluation and weight optimization via crash/drop tests. Drop tests performed have followed standard regulations used for airworthiness certification of such vehicles. The proposed VTOL vehicle is currently under prototype development.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, V., Askenazi, A.: Building Better Products with Finite Element Analysis. Onword, USA (1999)
Civil Aviation Safety Authority Australia: Design standards: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles-Rotorcraft (2000)
Coleman, P.C.: A Survey of Theoretical and Experimental Coaxial Rotor Aerodynamic Research, NASA Technical Paper 3675 (1997)
Davis, J.R.: Aluminum and Aluminum Alloys. ASM International, USA (1993)
Doitsidis, L., Valavanis, K.P., Tsourveloudis, N., Kontitsis, M.: A framework for fuzzy logic based UAV navigation and control. In: Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 4041–4046. New Orleans, USA (2004)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA): Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Design Criteria, Advisory Circular (DRAFT)
Seddon, J.: Basic Helicopter Aerodynamics. BSP Professional Books, Oxford (1990)
Kontitsis, M., Tsourveloudis, N., Valavanis, V.: A UAV vision system for airborne surveillance. In: Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), vol. 1, pp 78–83 (2004)
McCormick, B.W.: Aerodynamics Aeronautics And Flight Mechanics. Wiley and Sons, New York (1995)
Murthy Sreekanta, T., Kvaternik, R.G.: Experiences at Langley Research Center in the Application of Optimization Techniques to Helicopter Airframes for Vibration Reduction, NASA Technical Memorandum 104193 (1991)
NATO Committee for European Airspace Coordination: Guidance For Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Operations, Design Specification, Maintenance and Training of Human Resources, Annex to NATO Document AC/92-D/967
Prouty, R.W.: Helicopter Performance Stability, and Control. Krieger, Florida (1990)
Spanoudakis, P., Doitsidis, L., Tsourveloudis, N.C., Valavanis, K.P.: Vertical take-off and landing vehicle market overview. Unmanned Systems Magazine 21(5):14–18 (2003)
Spanoudakis, P.: Design of a new vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial vehicle, Master Thesis, Department of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete (2003)
Stepniewski, W.Z., Keys, C.N.: Rotary-Wing Aerodynamics. Dover, New York (1984)
U.S. Department of Defence: Metallic Materials and Elements for Aerospace Vehicle Structures, Military Standard MIL-HDBK-5J (2003)
U.S. Department of Transportation-Federal Aviation Administration: Certification of Normal Category Rotorcraft, Advisory Circular 27-1B (1999)
Unmanned Vehicles Handbook 2002, The Shepard Press Publications (2002)
Van Blyenburgh, P.: UAVs: an overview. Air Space Eur. 1(5/6), 43–47 (1999)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Spanoudakis, P.S., Tsourveloudis, N.C. & Valavanis, K.P. Design Considerations of a Prototype VTOL Robotic Vehicle through Market Survey Data Collection. J Intell Robot Syst 46, 339–364 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-006-9057-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-006-9057-1