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http://dx.doi.org/10.5139/JKSAS.2020.48.12.997

Conceptual Design and Flight Testing of a Synchropter Drone  

Chung, Injae (Agency for Defense Development)
Moon, Jung-ho (Department of Unmanned Aircraft System Engineering, Cheongju University)
Publication Information
Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences / v.48, no.12, 2020 , pp. 997-1004 More about this Journal
Abstract
A synchropter is a type of rotorcraft in which a pair of blades inclined with each other rotates in synchronization. Removing the tail rotor enables an efficient and compact configuration similar to a coaxial-rotor helicopter. This paper describes the design and flight test results of a small synchropter to examine the suitability of a drone system for the army. The synchropter in this paper is a small vehicle with a rotor diameter of 1.4m and a weight of 7kg and was assembled based on commercial parts to examine flight characteristics effectively. The flight control system adopted Pixhawk, which is designed based on an open-architecture. The model-based design technique is applied to develop the control law of the synchropter and a new firmware embedded on the Pixhawk. Through qualitative flight tests, we analyzed the flight characteristics. As a result of the analysis, we confirmed the possibility of application as a drone system of the synchropter.
Keywords
Synchropter; Intermeshing Rotor Helicopter; Open Architecture; Pixhawk;
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