Intellectual Property Rights Agreement: NO
Non-Disclosure Agreement: NO
EDSGN460W F2013
Boeing V/TOL – 2 Team S.W.A.G.
Statement of Work
For the period of August 26, 2013 through December 13, 2013
Submitted to
Dr. Wallace Catanach as a part of
EDSGN 460W
by
Lovedeep Bhela, Jeff Glusman, Kyle Maguire and Kevin Zhou
The Pennsylvania State University
Departments of Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering
University Park, PA 16802
9/24/2013
EDSGN460W F2013
Boeing V/TOL – 2 Team S.W.A.G.
Statement of Work
by
Lovedeep Bhela, Jeff Glusman, Kyle Maguire and Kevin Zhou
The Pennsylvania State University
Departments of Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering
University Park, PA 16802
9/24/2013
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to give special thanks to the following individuals for their support and guidance
throughout this project for without this would not have been possible:
Mihir Mistry – Flying Qualities Engineer, The Boeing Company, Ridley Park,
Pennsylvania
Adam Mohamed – Structural and Payload Design Engineer, The Boeing Company,
Ridley Park, Pennsylvania
Jason Steiner – Test and Evaluation Engineer, The Boeing Company, Ridley Park,
Pennsylvania
Wallace Catanach – Instructor of Engineering Management, The Pennsylvania State
University, University Park, Pennsylvania
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................................... i
LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................... ii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................... iii
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Background .......................................................................................................................... 1
1.2. General Explanation............................................................................................................. 1
CHAPTER 2. CUSTOMER NEEDS .............................................................................................. 2
2.1. Method for Gathering Customer Needs ............................................................................... 2
2.2. Analytic Hierarchy Process.................................................................................................. 2
CHAPTER 3. EXTERNAL RESEARCH ...................................................................................... 3
3.1. Patent Search ........................................................................................................................ 3
3.2. Benchmarking ...................................................................................................................... 3
CHAPTER 4. METRICS ................................................................................................................ 4
4.1. Target Specifications ........................................................................................................... 4
4.2. Needs/Metrics Matrix .......................................................................................................... 4
CHAPTER 5. CONCEPT GENERATION & SELECTION ......................................................... 5
5.1. Top Level Design ................................................................................................................. 5
5.2. Materials .............................................................................................................................. 6
5.3. Concept Mechanism Mapping ............................................................................................. 8
5.4. Pros and Cons of Concept Mechanism ................................................................................ 9
CHAPTER 6. CONCEPT DRAWINGS....................................................................................... 10
CHAPTER 7. ADMINISTRATIVE NEEDS ............................................................................... 13
7.1. Budget ................................................................................................................................ 13
7.2. Gantt Chart ......................................................................................................................... 14
7.3. Ethics.................................................................................................................................. 15
7.4. Environment ....................................................................................................................... 15
7.5. Communication .................................................................................................................. 15
CHAPTER 8. RISK AND SAFETY ............................................................................................ 16
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 18
Page i
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Power and signal flow paths on the ArduCopter platform. ............................................ 5
Figure 2: Proposed composite material’s structural layering ......................................................... 6
Figure 3: High-Strength Lightweight Carbon Fiber ....................................................................... 7
Figure 4: Concept Map for the Claw with Roller Tips ................................................................... 8
Figure 5: Concept map for the Vacuum with Nozzle ..................................................................... 8
Figure 6: Initial sketch of the Claw with Rollers conept .............................................................. 10
Figure 7: Initial sketch of the Vacuum with Nozzle conept ......................................................... 11
Figure 8: Initial sketch of the Dual-Scoop Bucket conept ............................................................ 12
Page ii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Analytic Scoreing of customer needs. .............................................................................. 2
Table 2: Target specifications for the final platform. ..................................................................... 4
Table 3: Customer needs Matrix relating customer needs to target specifications. ........................ 4
Table 4: Pros and Cons of the Claw with Roller Tips .................................................................... 9
Table 5: Pros and Cons of the Vacuum with Nozzle ...................................................................... 9
Table 6: Current Balance Sheet .................................................................................................... 13
Page iii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report reflects the process by which Team S.W.A.G. designed, fabricated, benchmarked,
and tested a pickup system designed to mount to existing ArduCopter structure for The Boeing
Company. The entire system needs to be able to complete a repeatable mission for as close to, if
not over, 15 minutes of flight. Currently there are other groups that have performed similar tasks
for other university sponsored events. Our goal was to design the most efficient methods for use
of the battery power over a 15 minute span of time. The only specification is that we must use
specific radio receiver and transceiver couple, and a specific battery.
Before beginning the project we researched into the existing configurations of the ArduCopter
and read through the myriad of posts on the manufacturer’s website about specific configuration
changes. Concept generation consisted of looking at different methods for picking up the tennis
balls, changes to the initial structure of the quadcopter, and different methods for testing
performance. It was decided via customer needs ranking which concepts to proceed with.
The main risk of this project is the loss of any parts such as, but not limited to, propellers,
batteries, motors, structure and electrical components. To avoid these issues, all structural
components were modeled in CAD for possible reconstruction and spare parts were kept on hand
throughout the process. The final product will be delivered to The Boeing Company after the
competition with the two other teams on December 6, 2013.
Page 1
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background
The Boeing Company is the largest aerospace company in the world and has huge sectors in both
commericial and military domains. Recently they have been experimenting with cooperative lift
quadcopters and ducted fan X-planes. Boeing has long been devoted to the education of the next
generation of engineers and with that comes CAPSTONE projects much like the one outlined in
this report.
Quadcopters started to become a big hit when microcontrollers started becoming open-source,
such as the Arduino UNO. This made it both easy and understandable for the slightly technical
population to begin home projects such as 3D printers and RC or autonomous quadcopters.
1.2. General Explanation
The Boeing Company has provided 3DRobotics quadcopter kits that are to be built and flown
before any alterations have been made. Once initial flights have occurred, an integrated pick-up
and drop-off system will be designed, built and tested on weighted tennis balls in an indoor
arena. The only design restriction is that the power supply for the flight system must be a
Turnigy nano-tech 4000mAh 3S 35~70C Lithium Polymer (LiPo) battery pack.
The three teams will be in competition over a 15 minute time period to pick up as many weighted
tennis balls from a reservoir 50 feet away and drop them off in a trash can. The quadcopter must
remain in flight between the two points but can land in order to make the pickup. There is only
allowed to be one pilot per one vehicle, and at least one vehicle must be a vertical
takeoff/landing (V/TOL). Once the mission has been completed it is mandatory to land in the
safe zone before time runs out.
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CHAPTER 2. CUSTOMER NEEDS
2.1. Method for Gathering Customer Needs
Initial customer needs were taken directly from the project description that can be found at
www.lf.psu.edu/Instructors/Projects/#719. Beyond the initial description of the mission and
specifications, the Redmine server found at www.projectslfpsu.com has been updated by the
Boeing project sponsors with further requirements and answers to questions. Communication
between team captains through the use of a Google document shared for all teams has
information on customer needs from each of the weekly status report meetings.
During weekly status report meetings, new requirements and questions are brought to Mihir
Mistry and Jason Steiner which if necessary are discussed with Adam Mohammed before an
answer is given.
2.2. Analytic Hierarchy Process
The needs developed from the previous section are to be weighed against each other in an
Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). This takes the ten needs developed and compares them to
one another. A score of 1.00 simply means that the two needs are of equal importance (typical
values are 2.00, 1.50, 1.25 and 1.00 and their reciprocals). The goal is to achieve a weight for
each need as relatively compared to the others. The final table can be seen below:
Table 1: Analytic Scoreing of customer needs.
Page 3
CHAPTER 3. EXTERNAL RESEARCH
3.1. Patent Search
As of current, there are no pertinent patents that fit the scope of our project.
3.2. Benchmarking
The following is a video of Raffaello D’Andrea talking at his TED talk about intelligent
quadcopters working together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ
There is also a huge following of the Arducopter based as a Wiki: http://copter.ardupilot.com/
Page 4
CHAPTER 4. METRICS
4.1. Target Specifications
These are the required specifications due to mission limits as well as based on the customer
needs.
Table 2: Target specifications for the final platform.
4.2. Needs/Metrics Matrix
The below matrix shows the customer needs listed on the y axis, and the target specifications on
the x axis. The different features that correspond with a customer need are marked with an X.
Some are directly related such as controllability and weight, and some are indirectly related such
as flight time and only using the allowable battery.
Table 3: Customer needs Matrix relating customer needs to target specifications.
Page 5
CHAPTER 5. CONCEPT GENERATION & SELECTION
5.1. Top Level Design
The following diagram shown below, is a simplified model of the electronics systems onboard
the ArduCopter. This simplified version displays each compoenent as well as its connections to
other components. Solid lines represent paths for power to flow while dashed lines represent
signal paths.
Figure 1: Power and signal flow paths on the ArduCopter platform.
The battery required by this project is a LiPo 3-cell battery, with the capacity of 4000mAh. It
serves as a voltage source, providing 11.1 volts, to the flight system. We are allowed an external
battery for the pick up mechanism as seen above.
The power module which allows the battery being connected to a Power Distribution Board
(PDB) and the APM board. There is also a built-in regulator in the power module, which
regulates the rate of power discharging of each cell of the battery.
Page 6
The APM board is an advanced power management board to manipulate the energy status of the
battery. In addition, it is also an important part of automatic pilot system, where it can
automatically control the flight process.
The other part connected to the power module is the PDB, which divides the power into the
Electrical Speed Controllers (ESC), so that the power can be distributed to the motors. Electrical
Speed Controllers and the Power Distribution Board are connected in series, while different pairs
of ESC and motors are constructed in parallel form. As Electrical Speed Controllers can vary the
speed of the motor, the current going through the motor would change accordingly.
For the energy aspect, the type of battery for the Quadcopter is limited to the LIPO 3-cell
4000mAh batteries. Based on quick calculations, the battery can last between 9 and 10 minutes
in real time flight, more in hover. After the team adds the mechanical design to pickup the
tennis balls, the operation time will drop dramatically to around 6 minutes, which is too short. To
solve the energy issue, there are two possible solutions. A hot-swappable battery is one option,
and the other is a secondary battery to provide the power for the mechanical system separately
from the main battery.
5.2. Materials
The quad-rotor helicopter frame consists of aluminum beam members that are assembled to form
the “X” configuration model. However, the total weight of the rotorcraft can be decreased if the
material of the aluminum beam members can be substituted with composite beam members.
Composite material is much lighter yet stronger than typical metallic substances. Composites are
formed by combining materials together to form an overall structure that is better than the
individual components. Some examples of composite material include fiber-reinforced polymer,
graphite, and ceramic matrices.
The structural layers and configuration of various materials can be seen below:
Figure 2: Proposed composite material’s structural layering
Page 7
The weight of composite material depends on the density of the components that form the
combination. However, it is the structural strength of the material that makes it a favorable
substitute of metallic components in most aircraft and rotorcraft. The type of resin and fiber
reinforcement greatly affects the strength of the composite and its ability to perform under
various orientation of stress.
The surface patterns of a fiber glass composite plate can be seen below:
Figure 3: High-Strength Lightweight Carbon Fiber
Page 8
5.3. Concept Mechanism Mapping
Figure 4: Concept Map for the Claw with Roller Tips
Figure 5: Concept map for the Vacuum with Nozzle
Page 9
5.4. Pros and Cons of Concept Mechanism
Table 4: Pros and Cons of the Claw with Roller Tips
Pros Cons
Simple mechanism to pick up ball without
complicated electronics
Copter needs to be positioned correctly over
ball to ensure proper pickup
Uses weight of quad-rotor copter and claw tip
rollers to grasp ball
Weight of copter and landing impact could
damage mechanism performance
Lock and release system is the only thing
needed for mechanism
Lock and release system could jam from hard
landing impacts
Composite material for claw makes it
lightweight for better performance
The landing legs of the copter would restrict
the mechanism from working
Four prongs would ensure that the ball would
be securely transported during flight
The mechanism could possibly not support the
weight of heavier balls
Table 5: Pros and Cons of the Vacuum with Nozzle
Pros Cons
Advanced method of picking up and releasing
ball with electronic system
Placement of digital vacuum could interfere
with other electronic systems
The digital motor is significantly small and is
favorable when considered total weight
An extension hose from the vacuum to the
nozzle could affect the landing legs
The digital motor is powerful and creates a
good amount of suction
The independent battery could be heavy and
affect the total weight of the rotorcraft
The nozzle combination works better to
increase suction power and attract the ball
Vacuum and nozzle suction strength may not
be enough to pick up heavier balls
Having an independent battery source would
reserve the motor battery
Mechanism control and performance could be
affected by rotorcraft vibrations
Page 10
CHAPTER 6. CONCEPT DRAWINGS
The concept sketch below consists of a 4 prong claw with tip rollers being lowered down onto
the tennis ball as the copter descends. The rollers will wrap around the ball untl it is completely
grasped and a locking mechanism will hold it in place during flight and release at dropoff.
Figure 6: Initial sketch of the Claw with Rollers conept
Page 11
The second concept,shown below, consists of a digital vacuum mechanism that would have an
extension tube with a converging nozzle at the tip for increased suction. The system would be
controlled and powered from independent sources like an external battery.
Figure 7: Initial sketch of the Vacuum with Nozzle conept
Page 12
The final concept sketch, shown below, consists of two pivoting arms that have a scoop bucket
attached to the bottom to completely engulf the tennis ball upon closure. The mechanism would
have to be electronically controlled in order to remain closed during flight and open to release
the ball.
Figure 8: Initial sketch of the Dual-Scoop Bucket conept
Page 13
CHAPTER 7. ADMINISTRATIVE NEEDS
7.1. Budget
The team budget is defined by the course syllabus and all purchases made by team members
have been according to the Senior Design Project Purchases and Reimbursements Guidelines.
Table 6: Current Balance Sheet
Assets Liabilities
Course Allowance Amount (USD) Material Purchases Amount (USD)
EDSGN 460W.1 $1,000.00 5 Pairs - XT60 Connectors $5.99
Total Assets $1,000.00 Total Liabilities $5.99
Net Balance $994.01
Boeing V/TOL Team 2: S.W.A.G.Budget Balance Sheet
Page 14
7.2. Gantt Chart
Page 15
7.3. Ethics
The biggest ethical issues that the team will encounter will be locations in which we choose to
fly and plagiarism. Ethical decisions must be made to ensure the safety of all personell on the
team as well as bystanders that will be around testing sites. The Boeing Company has advised
that all three teams collaborate and share ideas and resources throughout the project. An issue
could arise if one team uses concepts developed from another team without permission or
acknowledgement.
7.4. Environment
All decisions made in the design, build and test of the quadcopter will reflect what is best for the
environment. All products, once not usable, will be correctly recycled and disposed of.
7.5. Communication
Meetings with sponsors have been set for Mondays at 5:00 PM via Google Hangouts or Boeing
Teleconference Service. The Redmine Server was also ultilized for uploading weekly status
reports and updated Gantt Charts. The occasional email directly to the sponsors was used in case
of dire need.
Boeing Sponsor, Adam Mohammed, came up to Penn State for the weekend of September 28th
and 29th
in order to give each team lessons on flying.
Page 16
CHAPTER 8. RISK AND SAFETY
The ArduCopter being used for both baseline performance characteristics as well as an initial
foundation for later modifications in this project is designed to be a relatively stable platform for
newcomers in the world of vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Although this platform is
designed to be easily assembled and operated by individuals with little or no prior experience,
due to the nature of the equipment, there are inherent risks and safety issues to be addressed.
Foremost, prior to any flight one must ensure that all components and rotors are securely
fastened to the ArduCopter frame and that all parts appear to be structurally sound. If this is the
first flight, all screws should be checked to ensure that they have been securely fastened using
either a thread seal tape or a liquid thread lock to prevent them from coming loose due to system
vibrations. All rotor blades should be checked for integrity (no chips, cracks or splits should be
visible on the rotor blades). Finally the battery power levels will need to be examined and
verified that there is sufficient power in the battery to prevent damage to the LiPo cells.
The LiPo batteries used should be handled with care to prevent adverse conditions. Failure to
handle the batteries properly can result in drops and/or puncture. Physical abuse may cause the
battery to rupture and ultimately fail (ruptured/punctured LiPo cells have been known to catch
fire). Furthermore; the batteries should be charged in a location that will minimize the risk of
fire should the battery have a catastrophic failure. When charging the battery, the battery charger
should be set to the appropriate charging settings for the battery being charged. Failure to
properly charge the battery can result in battery degradation, failure or at worst explosion. In the
event of an adverse condition while charging, the charger should be immediately disconnected
from its power supply. If it is safe to do so, disconnect of the battery from the charger. Next,
place the battery (and charger if unable to safely disconnect) in a safe place such as a metal trash
can or driveway.
Ensure that the LiPo batteries are operated within their specified voltage and temperature bounds
to prevent degradation and/or failure. LiPo batteries should never be discharged below 3.0 volts
as discharging below 3.0 volts will not accept a full charge and may experience problems
maintaining voltage during use. Additionally, if the battery cables have to be modified to accept
a new connector ensure that these cables cannot accidentally cause a short circuit. Allowing a
short circuit can cause fire or explosion [1].
Once the ArduCopter is powered on and the rotors begin to spin they become a cutting hazard
and potential flying debris source. At no time should anyone attempt to touch the rotor blades
while the motors are being powered regardless if the rotors are spinning or not. If the motors
have power but are not moving, one should turn off the system and investigate the problem in a
safe manner. Failure to do so may result in a motor becoming freed while powered and the rotor
Page 17
blade to rapidly accelerate and become a cutting hazard. The motors rotate at speeds in excess of
5000 rpm which is fast enough to cause serious damage and/or injury to both the rotor blades and
anything they strike. A blade that strikes a solid object may break apart and send debris flying
through the air. It is important that anyone near or operating the ArduCopter wear appropriate
eye and/or face protection at all times.
The ArduCopter platform is by no means perfect and components are known to occasionally fail.
As a result it is possible that the system may become highly unstable and crash. In the event that
this happens, one should not attempt to catch the falling platform as there may still be an active
rotor blade. Common modes of failure for the system as a whole are electrical faults within the
electronic speed controller, motor failures, blade failures and loss of power. Loss of power is
commonly encountered when attempting to operate the system to the maximum limits of the
LiPo cell and can often be mitigated by ensuring an adequate flight time safety margin is adhered
to. Safely landing the ArduCopter prior to entering the flight time safety margin can help to
reduce power failures in addition to user error resulting from apprehension or tension spawning
from the need to land quickly to prevent a loss of power event.
NOTE: the system may lose power due to a component failure apart from the battery. Should a
power failure be encountered, all electrical components, including the battery, should be checked
to verify safe operation prior to operating the ArduCopter again.
Page 18
REFERENCES
[1] "Batteries & Battery-Powered Devices. Aviation Incidents Involving Smoke, Fire, Extreme
Heat, or Explosion," Federal Aviation Administration, 2013.