Development of flight test platform for flapping wings micro air vehicles

• Main Author: Pradipta, Johanes Eldwin
• Other Authors: Lau Gih Keong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Machine design and construction
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/64582
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This report presents the design, fabrication process, analysis and characterization of simple and low cost test platforms for force measurement of Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicles (FWMAVs). Simple pendulum method and linearly guided load cell based test platforms currently used by the research group presents limitations in measurement accuracy to capture both average and transient force. To improve the accuracy and precision of force measurement, the author used two main design approaches, one with load cell and another one through direct force balance. For load cell based platform, two main mechanism were built: direct mounting and balance beam mechanism. This study shows balance beam mechanism offers improvement over direct mounting in minimizing error contribution from extraneous forces and increasing precision of average forces. However, accuracy of the measurements is still yet to be achieved. Meanwhile, direct force measurements were achieved through force equilibrium of string guided tethered flight. Although measurement of transient force is not possible through this platform, the study shows that compared to the load cell based test platform, this platform offers the highest accuracy and precision of average thrust. This report also presents future design improvement that can be implemented to increase platforms’ accuracy and precision of both design approaches.