New Student Design Competition 2014: Cyclocopter: The Generation of Lift from a Cycloidal Blade System

[thsb20]

Contact Information

University: University of Bath

Team Members (with year of graduation): Thomas Brown (Me) (2014)

Project Supervisor: Dr Jon du Bois

Email Address: thsb20@bath.ac.uk

Project Information

For additional information on this project please see the attachment 'Final Report'. This describes the project in more detail. For further information or advice please feel free to email me or reply here.

Title:                Cyclocopter: The Generation of Lift from a Cycloidal Blade System

Description:  

The aim of the project was to build a cyclocopter rotor for testing of lift and power capabilities. Along with a physical model, CFD simulations were carried out and compared.

Products:      

National Instruments Labview, National Instruments myRIO control board, National Instruments Data Dashboard.

A full list of components can be seen in the attached report

The Challenge:

Cyclocopters are a newly researched means of flight. In an attempt to make the University of Bath a UK leader in this field, a rotor was to be produced that would set the foundation for further projects into making a full model. The rotor had to operate over a large speed range and angle of attacks, and be controlled accurately.

The Solution:

The cycloidal blade system works by changing the angle of attack of the blades as they rotate around the shaft, producing a net thrust in any direction perpendicular to the shaft.

The NI myRIO board was used to accurately control the motor speed by measuring the voltage from an opto-coupler, applying a PID gain, and outputting the correct PWM signal. The myRIO board was also used to calculate the angles needed for the servos to give a specific angle of attack, and a specific direction of thrust. The board also monitored the battery cell voltage to make sure it didn't become too discharged. The rotor was placed on a see-saw, so lift could be measured, and to demonstrate the ability to change thrust vectors. This required the myRIO to be powered by a voltage regulator from the battery, and be controlled by NI Data Dashboard app for android tablets; creating a portable solution.

Labview was extremely easy to use and get used to. I went from never using Labview before to having a simple control loop on motor speed in one day. The Data Dashboard app is extremely useful and well laid out. Debugging is the greatest asset of Labview, its very easy to see where something is going wrong compared to scripted language.

To see the VI code used for the control please see the attachment LabviewDocument.

The rotor is fully functional and was found to be able to generate thrust in any direction. The resultant angle attack followed the user input exactly, and the speed of the rotor stayed within 5RPM of the desired speed

This project was completed over 3 months, by myself. Within this time the rotor was designed from scratch, all parts specified, and all parts machined. The control system was designed and electronic circuits were created. This time also consisted of testing lift and power; over a wide range of speeds, angle of attacks and different aerofoil profiles.

I would like to see this rotor be used on an actual cyclocopter, however, before this happens the rig must be reduced in weight. The motor speed control can also be improved for a faster response time. There are many improvements that I would like to see done to this model, for a full list please see the attached report.

Attach Poster

For the poster, please see the attached file 'Poster', and for the Labview code, please see LabviewDocumentation

Nominate Your Professor

I nominate Jon du Bois as an excellent teacher. He brings fresh new ideas to the table, and exciting projects to work on. Along with the cyclocopter project he has also proposed an actively controlled suspension for bicycles project. These sort of projects inspire students like me and my coursemates to work on interesting and relevant projects. He is the lecturer that introduced me to Labview and to NI hardware. He is a lecturer at the University of Bath, in the mechanical engineering department, with a main focus on robotics.