Design and manufacture of a high-G unmanned aerial vehicle structure

In 1997, the Charles Stark Draper Laboratories commenced a project with the objectives of reducing the risk, cost and time associated with obtaining time critical battlefield reconnaissance data. The Wide Area Surveillance Projective, or WASP, is a small autonomous flyer, which is launched contained in an artillery shell, and then deployed over the battlefield to capture images. The first phase of this project involved identifying and solving the challenges associated with designing a device capable of surviving launch loads of 15,000 g’s. The second phase of WASP is currently addressing the manufacturing and flight control issues. The focus of this thesis is on the structural design and manufacture of the WASP vehicle, particularly the aft fuselage section and the wings. The aft section is not only subjected to high impulsive inertial loads, but its weight (being aft of the center of pressure) has a substantial effect on the controllability of the vehicle. Finite element models of this section as well as test specimens are produced to optimize the design. The wings are required to be stiff aerodynamic surfaces, and are folded along the side of the vehicle so as to take up minimal volume. Several different manufacturing procedures are explored to provide a robust set of wings that match all of the specified requirements. All of these pieces need to be as light as possible; therefore they are manufactured in advanced composite materials.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2000

Author dc:creator

• Kessler, Seth Stovack, 1977-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Gregory A. Kirkos.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/16739

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/16739