Design, Development and Manufacture of a New VTOL,

Canard UAV
Diogo Beirão Valente Henriques Tomás
diogo.beirao.tomas@tecnico.ulisboa.pt

Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

January 2021

Abstract
In this project, a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a canard
configuration was designed.
The design started by selecting the wing and canard geometry that satisfies the project requirements. To
do so, a lifting line theory program was developed and used to determine the aerodynamic performance
of the different lifting surfaces geometry.
The remaining control surfaces were designed based on empirical data and the fuselage geometry was
scaled down from a predetermined shape.
The structural design was made having in mind the availability of off-the-shelf items and their compatibility
with the model. A static load simulation was made, showing that the flexural stress limit wasn’t exceeded
in any structural component.
A total of 4 configurations were designed which only differ in the propulsion system distribution. Therefore
the structures that support the VTOL systems will also differ, resulting in 4 different outer mold lines
(OML). These were analyzed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and their aerodynamic efficiency
assessed. Penalties arising from exposure of VTOL motors and structural components to the flow
represent up to 13% decrease in L/D.
With CFD data, aerodynamic derivatives were calculated and with an initial estimate of the inertia, the
flight dynamics model was built. All dynamic modes are stable with the exception of the spiral, which
becomes less unstable as the cruise speed increases.
Configuration 1 was manufactured. The inertia was determined using the bifilar pendulum method. To
assess the structure, static load and hover tests were conducted, yielding satisfactory results.
Keywords:UAV, aircraft design, canard configuration, aerodynamic sizing, lifting line theory

1. Introduction With this in mind, in this project a proof of con-

1.1. Motivation, Project Overview and Requirements
Technological advances in propulsion and control
increased the demand for aircraft that possess
VTOL capability while maintaining the cruise effi-
ciency of fixed wing aircraft. Investment on these
aircraft have propelled their development, render-
ing them viable for multiple applications, from mili-
tary to urban air mobility.
In this context, achieving peak cruise performance
became essential to increase the endurance and
mission range, which is obtained by employing the
advantageous aerodynamic characteristics of a ca-
nard configuration. This type of configuration is
best suited for VTOL aircraft, as it eliminates its
main drawback, the need of longer runways.
To assess the design’s airworthiness as well its
capabilities and shortcomings, UAVs are utilized,
since they are less expensive to develop and have
less risk associated with them.
cept for a military application, whose purpose is
to detect magnetic anomalies that occur under the
sea, will be fully designed. For this reason, the
prototype will be as similar as possible to the full
scale aircraft, respecting several requirements. It
has to be a canard configuration where the canard
stalls before the wing, with the wing producing lift
equivalent to 80% of the UAV’s weight and the ca-
nard the other 20%. For future reference this will
be addressed as 80-20 lift distribution. The max-
imum take-off weight (MTOW) must be 7kg, the
UAV should cover 400 meters in 20 seconds or
more and its static margin should be between 7
and 20%
Four different proof of concept prototypes will be
produced prior to the development of the full scale
aircraft. These configurations only differ in propul-
sive system, with each iteration being closer to the
intended for the full scale. Configuration 1 has

1
4 equidistant VTOL motors from the CG and a
pusher motor. Configuration 2 has 4 VTOL motors
with a ratio for the front rotors distance to CG to
the rear rotors distance to CG of 4/1 and a pusher.
Configuration 3 has the same distribution as con-
figuration 2, but the front motors have the ability to
retract inside the fuselage, tilting the rear rotors to
perform forward flight. Configuration 4 has a triro-
tor configuration with the same distribution as con-
figuration 2 and 3, with two motors in the front and
one on the back, having the same retracting mech-
anism and the motor on the rear has the ability to
tilt, serving has a pusher during cruise flight. In this
work, configuration 1 is fully designed and manu-
factured while the others will only be designed and
compared by means of computational methods.
1.2. Literature Review
One of the first canard configurations dates back
to 1903, with the first powered aircraft, the Wright
Flyer. The Wright brothers’ reasoning behind
the choice of a canard configuration was intuitive
rather than supported by analytical/empirical data,
since they wanted to avoid a control loss accident
like the one that occurred in 1986, in an aft tail
configuration glider. The visibility of the control
surface by the pilot was another factor that led
the Wright brothers to the selection of a canard
configuration.
Despite being controlled, the aircraft was unstable.
For an aircraft to be stable its center of gravity (CG)
needs to lie in front of its neutral point (NP). In a
canard configuration the NP is in front of the wing
aerodynamic center (a.c) while in a conventional
configuration the NP lies aft of the wing a.c. In
the Wright Flyer most of the weight (biplane cell,
engine and pilot) was located in the biplane cell,
placing the CG aft of the NP [1].
Several researches were conducted to determine
which configuration (conventional or canard) was
superior, either aerodynamically, weight or stability
wise. These studies [2] [3] [4] concluded that the
canard advantages are comprised by better stall
control and better L/D when properly designed.
Regarding the disadvantages, canard configu-
rations require longer runways for take-off and
canard sizing is more critical than tail sizing since
it can highly affect the overall performance of the
aircraft.
2. Theoretical Background
The theory selected for preliminary design is the
lifting line theory. Prandtl’s lifting line theory is used
as preliminary calculation method to estimate the
characteristics of a finite wing. This theory is valid
for unswept wings with high aspect ratio under in-
compressible, inviscid and steady flow.
2
Prandtl’s theory models the wing as a bound vortex
filament of strength Γ placed at the quarter-chord
position, the lifting line. This vortex is shed as a
vortex sheet at the trailing edge.
The lifting line theory can be represented by a sin-
gle equation, Equation 1, where s is the semi-span,
θ is the mapping angle, c is the chord, Clα is the
lift coefficient slope, α∞ is the free stream angle
of attack and θt is the twist. All these values refer
to the airfoil at each section and therefore change
at each station, if the airfoil varies along the span.
This equation’s only unknown are the coefficients
of An .
∞
X Clα c
An sin (nθ)(sin θ + n )=
8s
n=1 (1)
Clα c
sin θ(α∞ + θt − α0 )
8s
Knowing the An coefficients, the aerodynamic
characteristics of the wing, namely the lift and in-
duced drag coefficients, can be computed as fol-
lowing
CL = πARA1 , (2)
∞
X
CDi = πAR nAn 2 , (3)
n=1
where AR is the aspect ratio of the surface [5]
3. Prototype Design
3.1. Airfoil Selection
The airfoil selection was made with the aid of
XFLR5. In this software several NACA 4-digit se-
ries airfoils were analysed at Re = 2.379 × 105 ,
which was obtained from the desired cruise speed
and an initial estimate of the chord. From this study
the curves of CL vs AoA and CL /CD vs AoA were
obtained, the latter, which is presented in Figure 1,
was used to select the desired airfoil.
From Figure 1, the airfoil NACA 4412 stands out
Figure 1: CL /CD vs AoA curves for different airfoils
as having the highest CL /CD among all the anal-
ysed airfoils, making it a good candidate for the air-
craft airfoil. However, the aircraft mission enters
into play for the airfoil selection, since dash is also
important. To trim the aircraft during dash, a low
CL is necessary, making the L/D low during this
flight condition. The higher the camber, the lower mined using
the L/D will be at higher speed, so to have a bet-
ter compromise between cruise and dash perfor- 1 2 Sw c¯w CMac w + Sc cc CMac c
Fcg = ρV + 0.2, (5)
mance the airfoil NACA 2412 was chosen. Both 2 cr dc−w W
wing and canard have the same airfoil.
where W represents the aircraft weight and dc−w
3.2. Lifting Surfaces Design represents the distance between wing and canard.
The lifting line theory was the selected preliminary Equation 5 was derived from
design method used to size the wing and canard.
−Mc −Mw +0.8W Fcg dc−w −0.2W dc−w (1−Fcg ) = 0,
To apply it, a MATLAB® program was developed,
(6)
which takes as inputs the air properties, the cruise
which is the moment balance equation, taking into
speed, the angle of attack (AoA) and the wing and
account a 80-20 lift distribution. Note that these
canard’s geometric characteristics. The wing char-
two equations assume the pitching moment to be
acteristics taken into account are: taper ratio (λ),
negative. Similarly to the CG, the neutral point po-
with a linear chord distribution along the span, twist
sition relative to the wing’s a.c., denoted Fnp was
(θt ) at the root and at the tip, assuming a linear
also calculated with
distribution along the span, aspect ratio (ARw ) and
area (Sw ). The canard was defined to be rect- CLα c SSWc
angular, so the only characteristics taken into ac- Fnp = . (7)
CLα c SSWc + CLα w
count are the aspect ratio (ARc ) and the ratio be-
tween wing and canard area (Fc-w ). To comply with
Having the CG and NP, the static margin (Kn ) is
the requirements this ratio has to be smaller than
obtained from
0.25. The distance between wing and canard aero-
dynamic centers (a.cs.) was also taken into ac- dc−w
Kn = (Fcg − Fnp ) . (8)
count. To determine the wing/canard combination c¯w
that best suits the project’s needs, a parametric
study was conducted varying the parameters men- To determine the trim AoA and canard incidence
tioned above. (ic ), the values of CL corresponding to the 80-20
The program can be subdivided into three subse- lift distribution were calculated for each surface.
quent parts. In the first part, the geometric prop- With these values and the data obtained in the first
erties of the wing and canard, such as chord dis- part of the program, an interpolation was made re-
tribution and span, are calculated based on the sulting in the AoA and ic for trimmed flight. With
input variables. Afterwards, the position of each these angles another interpolation was made to
spanwise station is computed, on which the 2D obtain the induced and parasitic drag of both sur-
aerodynamic properties are obtained from interpo- faces. Then, an approximation of the fuselage
lated airfoil data. With these values Equation 1 is drag, based on the distance between wing and ca-
solved for each surface, obtaining the CL and the nard, was made using data from a previous project
CDi from equations 2 and 3, respectively. These [6] and all the drag components were added, ob-
values are stored with respect to the AoA. To es- taining the total drag. Lastly the L/D was obtained
timate the parasitic drag of each surface, the CL by dividing the aircraft weight by the total drag.
at each section is calculated, based on the Kutta- In the third, and last, part of the program the stall
Joukowski theorem and Equation 4, to obtain the speed (Vs ) and the AoA at which stall occurs are
profile drag at each station by interpolating the CD determined. To do so, starting from the previously
vs CL data from the airfoil. Then the profile drag isobtained trim angles and cruise speed, the speed
integrated over the span. The CMac of the full sur- is gradually reduced. Since the canard stalls first,
face, for both wing and canard, was also calculated the criterion for stall was based on the CL at each
by integration. canard section and the CLmax of the airfoil. Stall
was considered to occur whenever the CL at a
X∞ given section was greater than or equal to CLmax . If
Γ(y) = Γ(θ) = 4sV∞ An sin (nθ) (4) stall is detected the angles at which it occurs were
n=1 stored, as well as the speed of the current iteration,
being this the stall speed. At each new speed the
The second part of the program computes the trim, forces and moments balance, presented in Equa-
using the lift and pitching moment contributions tion 9, is solved to obtained the wing and canard’s
from each surface. Using the previously obtained CL at the new trim condition. With these values
data, the CLα of the wing and canard is deter- the trim angles are computed with the process de-
mined. Afterwards, the position of the CG relative scribed previously, which will be used as the start-
to the wing’s a.c. position, denoted Fcg , is deter- ing point for the next iteration. This loop runs until

3
stall occurs. Figure 2 is a schematic representation
of the program’s algorithm.
(
LW + Lc = W
−Mc − Mw − dc−w ((1 − Fcg )Lc − Fcg LW ) = 0
(9)
Figure 2: Program’s algorithm schematic
After analysing all configurations, plots of L/D vs
Vs , L/D vs Sw , L/D vs Fcg and L/D vs Kn , repre-
sented by Figures 3 to 6 respectively, were made
and studied. From Figure 3, it can be seen that
higher values of L/D are achieved for configura-
tions whose stall speed is in the range of 11 to 13
m/s. To achieve lower stall speed the wing area
has to be higher, however as seen in Figure 4, the
higher L/D are achieved with lower wing areas.
Since the lift produced in cruise is the same for all
configurations, having a higher area will result in
higher parasitic drag, thus having lower L/D. In
Figure 5, five different regions can be highlighted,
each corresponding to a different value of wing and
canard distance. Note that the only difference be-
tween each cluster of points is the distance be-
tween the two surfaces. A larger distance will lead
to a higher Fcg , refer to Equation 5, as well as lower
L/D, since the increase in distance will result in an
increase in the fuselage length, therefore increas-
ing the drag and decreasing the L/D. In Figure 6,
the static margin range requirement is highlighted.
These results are dependent on the ones shown
in the previous figure, as displayed by Equation 8,
thus an increase in the distance between wing and
canard will lead to an increase in the static margin,
since the NP relative position is not affected by this
parameter.
The selection criteria used to obtain the configura-
Figure 3: L/D vs Vs from program results
tion that best suits the mission were a static margin
between the required range (7%-20%); having high
4
Figure 4: L/D vs Sw from program results
Figure 5: L/D vs Fcg from program results
Figure 6: L/D vs Kn from program results
L/D with low stall speed; have the smallest wing
span possible, for ease of manufacture and trans-
port and have a big enough distance (>= 1 m) be-
tween wing and canard to mitigate any interference
the latter might cause on the wing, since this pro-
gram doesn’t account for the wing-canard interac-
tion.
The selected configuration has a cruise L/D of
19.23, a stall speed of 13 m/s, a static margin of
19% and the distance between surfaces is 1 m,
leading to a Fcg of 0.1783. The selected configura-
tion has a wing with an area of 0.5 m2 , 2.4 m span
(bw ) and 0.208 m mean chord (c̄w ). Its taper ratio
is 0.8 and the twist at the tip is -2◦ . To achieve trim
in cruise, the wing incidence has to be 5◦ . While
the obtained canard has an area of 0.08 m2 , 1.02
m span and a mean chord of 0.0784 m. In order to
achieve trim, the canard incidence has to be 7◦ .
3.3. Other Control Surfaces Design
The remaining control surfaces were designed
from empirical data, resulting in an aileron whose
hinge line was located at 30% chord from the trail-
ing edge, the aileron’s span was 10% of the wing
span and it was located 1.5% of the wing span from
the wing tip.
The vertical tail was designed based on the vol-
ume coefficient (cV T ), of 0.012, obtained in a pre-
vious work [6]. To avoid having a tall vertical tail,
the required total tail area was divided between two
surfaces, one on top of the fuselage,referred to as
upper tail, and one below, referred to as lower tail.
The distance between the CG and the tail a.c., de-
noted LV T , is 0.4 m. The total tail area (SV T ) is
0.0364 m2 , with the upper tail having 60% of the
total area. Both tails have a taper ratio of 0.4 and
the upper tail has a height of 0.3 m and the lower
tail has a height of 0.2 m. Both have a root chord of
0.104 m and tip chord of 0.0416 m. The airfoil se-
lected for both tails is the symmetric NACA 0012.
The rudder design followed the same method as
the aileron one. The rudder hinge line was located
at 20% chord from the tail trailing edge, the rud-
der span was 80% of the tail height and it was lo-
cated at 3% of the tail height from the tail tip. A
rudder was made for both upper and lower tail. In
the CFD analysis two situations were studied, one
where both rudders where deflected and another
where only the upper one was deflected. This was
to determine if one rudder was enough to ensure
sufficient authority. The results of this study are
also presented in the CFD section below.
3.4. Fuselage Design
The fuselage was sized from an available model
of the full scale aircraft fuselage. To obtain the
fuselage scaling factor, a SOLIDWORKS ® model
was created were the wing, canard and vertical tail
were placed. The nose was defined to be at the
origin of the model and the CG was defined to be
1.2 m aft of the nose. With everything placed and
with the right distance and angle relations, the full
scale fuselage was introduced in the same model,
making the nose coincide with the origin. Then,
the scaling factor was changed until the vertical tail
was at the end of the fuselage. The resulting scal-
ing factor is 50%.
To confirm if the fuselage was big enough to ac-
commodate all the required avionics’ components,
the shape of these components was approximated
by cylinders and parallelepipeds, with the overall
dimensions of said components, and then intro-
duced inside the fuselage. A scaling factor of 50%
proved to be enough to fit all the required com-
ponents inside of the fuselage, yielding a fuselage
with 1.75 m in length (Lf use ).
3.5. Structural Design
Having performed the aerodynamic design, the
structural design followed. The design was made
having in mind time of manufacture, availability of
off the shelf items and structural rigidity. The de-
sign for all configurations is made, presenting firstly
the structures that all have in common and later
discussing the differences between each configu-
ration.
The main load carrying structures were chosen to
be off the shelf carbon fiber tubes, acting as spars.
The fuselage has four spars that run from the nose
to the tail, placed in a square shape. The canard
5
has one spar located at its quarter chord, as well
as the vertical tail. The wing has two spars, one
placed at the quarter chord and another one at
61% of the chord at the root section and 71% of the
chord at the tip section, to provide torsional rigidity
to the wing.
To account for the manufacturing process, 3D print-
ing, the wing structure was designed to ensure
the highest structural strength and the least weight
possible.
To ensure rigidity of the aircraft, 3D printed pieces
were designed whose purpose is to connect the
spars. One connecting the canard spar and two of
the fuselage spars, another connecting both wing
spars and all the fuselage spars and a last one con-
necting the tail spar and two of the fuselage spars.
The image of the structural model is presented in a
section below.
To accommodate the VTOL system of configura-
tion 1, two booms connected to the canard and
wing were used, placed along the fuselage mid
plane. These booms are also carbon fiber tubes
available at the supplier. Four additional connec-
tors were made (two in each side of the aircraft) to
connect the booms to the wing and canard.
A rough design of the motor mounts was made and
placed where the motors for configuration 1 would
be. With this, the outer mold line (OML) of the air-
craft is finished and ready to use for CFD simula-
tions. Figure 7 shows the OML of this configura-
tion.
Figure 7: Configuration 1 OML
The only differences, structure wise, between con-
figuration 1 and 2 are the VTOL system supports.
For this configuration, the booms will come out of
the fuselage and connect to the front motors. The
rear motors will be placed in a support located be-
low the wing and more inboard, in relation to the
rear motors of configuration 1. Since the front mo-
tors will be in the front of the aircraft, a redesign
of the front motor mounts was made, with the goal
of reducing drag. The OML of this configuration is
presented in Figure 8
In configuration 3, during cruise, The OML will be

Figure 8: Configuration 2 OML
similar to the previous one, but without the front
motors and their booms. Configuration 3 OML is
presented in Figure 9.
Figure 9: Configuration 3 OML
As for the forth configuration, during cruise, all the
VTOL systems will be retracted or tilted, making
the airframe, i.e. canard, wing, tail and fuselage,
its OML, presented in Figure 10.
Figure 10: Configuration 4 OML
3.6. Structural Analysis
To perform the structural analysis, a beam model
of the aircraft structure was created in ANSYS
6
Mechanical® . Only configuration 1 was analysed.
The model is presented in Figure 11, where each
line corresponds to a carbon tube and the other
pieces are the plastic connectors. All the tubes
were modeled as beams and the contact points
were modeled as deformable and fixed, except for
the canard contact points which allowed rotations.
Figure 11: Structural model used in structural analysis
After applying the loads, equivalent to a 4.5g pull
up maneuver, the structure is analysed obtaining
the vertical displacement and the maximum stress.
The maximum stress occurs at the wing spars with
a value of 320 M P a, which is lower than the max-
imum compressive stress (517 M P a) indicated by
the manufacturer. The maximum stress detected
at the 3D printed connectors was 7 M P a, which is
below the specified flexural strength for this mate-
rial (PETG).
This software also provides an estimate of the
inertia matrix of the system, which is given by
Ixx = 0.62512, Iyy = 0.71090, Izz = 1.3323 and
Ixz = 0.013, in kg.m2 . These values were used in
a first approach for the flight dynamics model.
On the same environment, a modal analysis was
conducted to determine the natural frequencies of
the aircraft structure. The results obtained for the
first 6 mode range from 6.43 to 13.29 Hz.
3.7. CFD Analysis
The CFD analyses were made in ANSYS CFX® us-
ing a SST turbulence model in a steady state en-
vironment with air at 25◦ C and 1 atm. A domain
was created around the aircraft with dimensions
of 5bw x10Lf use x16c¯w . The simulations were made
at cruise speed and with inlet boundary conditions
at the front face of the domain (where the aircraft
nose points to) and at the side faces of the domain
(4 faces), the rear face of the domain has an open-
ing boundary condition and the aircraft has a wall
boundary condition. For the inlet boundary the ve-
locity vector is specified, the opening boundary has
a relative static pressure of 0 and the wall bound-
ary has a no slip condition.
Before analysing all configurations a mesh conver-
gence study was performed to determine the num-
ber of elements necessary to obtain satisfyingly ac-
curate results. From this study, it was decided that
a mesh with approximately 5million elements pro-
duced satisfactory results.
A batch of analysis were made where the AoA var-
ied from -7 to 7◦ and the sideslip angle (β) from
0 to 5◦ . Note that the aircraft OML was made so
that the wing and canard are at their incidence an-
gles during cruise, therefore at 0◦ AoA the aircraft
should be trimmed. To achieve these different an-
gles, the velocity vector was computed based on
the current AoA and β and used as the inlet bound-
ary condition. These analyses were performed for
all configurations.
An analysis was also made were only the wing and
canard were included. This served as a compari-
Figure 13: L/D vs CL for different configurations
son term to validate the results obtained from the
lifting line theory program.
Lastly, four more simulations were made where the
The first comparison to be made is between the
control surfaces were deflected. All of these were
results from the lifting line theory program and its
made at 0◦ AoA: one where the canard incidence
equivalent from CFD. It can be seen that CFD pre-
was decreased 3◦ ; another where the ailerons
dicts a L/D 16 % higher than the lifting line the-
were deflected -15◦ ; one where both rudders were
ory (22.33 vs 19.23). This discrepancy is due to
deflected 15◦ ; and a last one where the upper rud-
the wing-canard flow interaction, which was not ac-
der was deflected 15◦ .
counted for in the lifting line theory program. In a
The aerodynamic derivatives with respect to the
canard configuration, the canard tip vortices cause
control surfaces, obtained in CFD, were compared
an upwash effect on the wing, which will increase
with empirical data from Cessna 172 [7], to assess
the lift produced by the wing, resulting in higher lo-
the control effectiveness of the surfaces as well as
cal AoA and overall L/D. This will also effect the
the need for a second rudder. The rates produced
trim at cruise, since the speed needed to achieve
by the deflection of the control surfaces were also
the same lift will be lower than the one used in lift-
determined, concluding that one rudder was suffi-
ing line theory. As it can be seen from Figure 12,
cient and that the remaining control surfaces pro-
trim (CM = 0) happens at CL between 0.72 and
duced satisfactory rates.
0.91, depending on the configuration, which results
The results obtained from the other simulations are
in a range of cruise velocities between 15.64 and
presented in Figure 12, where the relation between
17.65, which is also summarized in Table 1.
CM and CL for all configurations is presented, in
Configuration 1 and 2 have lower L/D since the
Figure 13, where the relation between L/D and
VTOL booms are exposed to the air flow during
CL is presented and in Table 1 where the trim L/D
cruise. Configuration 2 has the lowest L/D be-
is presented, and its variation with respect to con-
cause its booms are not parallel to the flow. In an
figuration 4, for all configurations as well as for
attempt to increase this value, a symmetric airfoil
the case with only canard and wing, alongside the
was applied to the booms. With this change, the
cruise speed at which trim is achieved (Vtrim ).
L/D increased 13.5% however, the booms with the
airfoil behaved like an additional canard, destabiliz-
ing the aircraft. Therefore, the airfoil booms were
rejected. The difference between configuration 3
and 4 is due to the quadrotor support located un-
der the wing which, in configuration 4, will be tilted
during cruise. This reasoning is the same behind
the different curves seen in Figure 13.
From this results is clear that configuration 1 and
Figure 12: CM vs CL for different configurations 2 would have significant range penalty, when com-
pared to configuration 3 and 4, although this range
difference would be reduced if the weight of the re-
tract and tilt mechanisms were accounted for.
Configuration L/D ∆L/D [%] Vtrim [m/s]
Regarding Figure 12, the pitching moment for all
Wing+canard 22.33 — 17.47 configurations is very similar, except for configura-
1 16.44 -13.93 17.26 tion 2. This can be explained by the location and
2 13.91 -27.17 15.64 orientation of the booms in this configuration.
3 18.53 -2.98 17.65 3.8. Flight Dynamics Model
4 19.1 0 17.06 To build the flight dynamics model (FDM), the
Table 1: Trim L/D for different configurations aerodynamic derivatives were determined from the

7
CFD results previously obtained.
With this information a MATLAB® program and a
Simulink® model were developed. The program
works as initialization for the Simulink® model, as
it computes the reference state, i.e the trim of the
aircraft for a certain flight condition, based on the
derivatives, flight condition and wind condition.
To determine the aircraft trim and stability charac-
teristics at different cruise velocities, for all configu-
rations, in a range between 10 and 35 m/s, a new
MATLAB® program was developed. This program
uses the same algorithm as the previous one to
compute the trim conditions, which will be calcu-
lated for each velocity analysed. After obtaining
the trim state, the dynamics matrix for both longi-
tudinal and lateral motions is built. Afterwards, the
poles, damping and natural frequencies of the sys-
tem are calculated with the aid of the MATLAB®
function damp. These results allowed to conclude
that all the modes are stable with the exception of
the spiral, which gets less unstable as the speed
increases. To determine if the structural vibration
modes would be coupled with the aerodynamic
modes, the natural frequencies and damping coef-
ficient were compared to the ones obtained in the
structural modal analysis, leading to the conclusion
that the aerodynamic modes are not likely coupled
with the structural ones.
In the Simulink® model, configuration 1 response
to perturbations in the control surfaces was stud-
ied. The results show that, for a canard deflection,
the aircraft returns to its reference state, therefore
it’s deemed that the aircraft is longitudinally sta-
ble, as expected from the previous results. Two
distinct behaviours were detected. In the initial
seconds, higher oscillation was seen in z velocity,
which quickly dampens, making it possible to state
that initial motion is dominated by the short period
mode. Afterwards, higher oscillations in x velocity
were seen, which have low damping, characteristic
of the phugoid mode.
Looking at the response to the aileron deflection, it
was seen that in the beginning of the motion there
were oscillations, characteristic of the dutch roll.
After this, the oscillations are damped and an expo-
nential behaviour, characteristic of the spiral, can
be seen for the roll and yaw angles. This values
diverge since the spiral mode is unstable.
The same analysis can be done when the rudder
is deflected. Similarly, the initial motion was char-
acterize by the presence of dutch roll. The spi-
ral mode instability was also seen here, after the
damping of the dutch roll mode.
4. Manufacturing & Experimental Testing
4.1. Manufacturing
3D printing was chosen as the manufacturing
method due to the project’s time constraints as well
8
as for the rapid prototyping ability it provides. De-
spite these advantages, 3d printing has its short-
comings, since the printer might malfunction during
the printing process and additional post-print man-
ufacture needs to be done to make the part airwor-
thy.
Only configuration 1 was manufactured.
After fully assembling the aircraft it was noted that
the fuselage had low torsional rigidity, due to the
lack of rigidity of the plastic connectors for the fuse-
lage spars.
4.2. Mass and Inertia
After manufacturing, assembling and placing all
the internal components (avionics, servos and har-
nessing) in the aircraft, its CG position, mass and
inertia were determined.
To ensure that the CG was in the desired position,
the aircraft was hung from two points in the booms
that were aligned with the desired CG position. The
CG is in the right position if the aircraft remains hor-
izontal while hung. In this case, the aircraft rotated
upwards (tail heavy), so 100 g of lead were added
into the nose cone.
To determine the mass, a scale was placed under
each landing gear and the value read in each scale
was added, resulting in 7.118 kg, without the lead.
To determine the inertia the BFP method was used.
A ceiling crane with wires was available at Cfar
(Center for aerospace research). To make use of
this device, and to ensure that the aircraft’s struc-
ture wasn’t damaged, a clamp was designed.
To conduct BFP in all 3 axes, 5 clamps were placed
on the aircraft so that the CG would lie between the
wires. The clamps were fixed and all the tests had
the 5 clamps. Using a VectorNav sensor placed
at the CG, the aircraft was disturbed to oscillate
around each axis. For each axis 3 measurements
were made. The inertia was computed from Equa-
tion 10, where T is the period of the oscillation, W
is the weight of the test object, A is the distance
between wires and l is the length of the wires.
T 2 W A2
I= , (10)
16π 2 l
Afterwards, the parallel axis theorem was used to
remove the clamp contribution to the inertia, as-
suming each clamp to be a point mass.
An average was calculated between the inertia ob-
tained for each measurement, resulting in Ixx =
1.2981, Iyy = 0.3274 and Izz = 2.5212, all in kg.m2 .
Ixz was assumed to be negligible when compared
to the other inertia.
4.3. FDM update
With these results the FDM was updated to deter-
mine if the aircraft was stable as well as to compare
the frequencies of each mode with the structural
natural frequencies.
It was seen that with the new inertia the poles vari-
ation with velocity remains the same for all modes,
except for the short period, which stops being os-
cillatory at higher speeds. The same behaviour
can be identified when studying the influence of low
static margins in the dynamic modes.
Regarding the natural frequencies obtained, these
were still lower than the structural ones, so it’s ex-
pected that coupling will not occur.
4.4. Static Load Tests
A wing static load test was conducted with a 3g
load to assess, qualitatively, the wing structure, as-
suming an elliptic lift distribution.
The load at each point of interest was computed
and sand bags, whose weight corresponded to the
calculated loads, were placed along the wing span,
which was flipped upside down. Figure 14 shows
the wing loaded with the sand bags as well as its
deflection.
Figure 14: Wing static load test
From this test it was concluded that the wing can
support the loads of the operational limit (3g) and
that the deflection seen is close to the one com-
puted for a cantilever beam.
4.5. Hover Test
The aircraft is now ready to flight test. In order to
fly an UAV outdoors in Canada, the aircraft needs
to be commissioned and registered to the authori-
ties. This is a lengthy process which wasn’t able to
be completed within this work’ time frame. There-
fore, indoor hover tests were conducted to eval-
uate the VTOL system and the controller perfor-
mances. This test also allowed to evaluate the air-
craft’s structure under the loads generated in VTOL
flight mode.
The hover tests were successful, proving that the
structure is able to support the VTOL loads. Dur-
ing yaw maneuvers, high torsion in the front section
of the aircraft, where the canards are located, was
detected. This was due to the low torsional rigidity
of the fuselage, which can be fixed by adding con-
necting parts to the fuselage spars.
9
No further conclusions regarding the work devel-
oped could be drawn from the hover test.
In Figure 15 a picture of the aircraft performing
hover is presented.
Figure 15: Hover test
5. Conclusions
During this research an UAV was sized, manufac-
tured and tested.
The process started by sizing the aircraft’s lifting
surfaces from Prandtl’s lifting line theory. To com-
ply with the requirements, the aircraft has a ca-
nard configuration where the wing produces 80%
of the lift and the canard produces the remaining
20%. The airfoil was selected for both surfaces
based on their performance at the desired Re and
a MATLAB® program, based on the lifting line the-
ory, was developed to perform a parametric study
on the wing and canard geometric characteristics,
while assessing the trim and stall conditions. From
this study, the wing and canard were selected tak-
ing into account the static margin requirement (7-
20%), the highest possible L/D while maintaining
the lowest possible stall speed as well as the low-
est possible wing area.
Having sized the wing and canard, the remaining
control surfaces followed. These were sized based
on data collected empirically. The fuselage was
also sized taking into account the internal compo-
nent dimensions.
After completing the aerodynamic design, the
structural design followed. In this process, the
availability of off-the-shelf items was taken into ac-
count, as well as their compatibility with the air-
craft’s airframe and internal components. The
wing structure was designed with the manufacture
method in mind, 3D printing. Considerations were
also made for the different configurations VTOL
system supports. At this point, the OML of all con-
figurations was available, making possible com-
putational simulations in both aerodynamics and
structural domains.
The structural analysis for configuration 1 was
made in ANSYS® Mechanical, where the aircraft’s
spars and connectors were designed. The spars
were treated as beams. The structure was loaded
with the equivalent forces and moments produced
at a 4.5g pull up maneuver and the deflection and
stress were obtained. A modal analysis was also
conducted to assess the aircraft’s natural frequen-
cies.
Afterwards, CFD analysis were conducted in
ANSYS® CFX for all configurations. These anal-
ysis were made at different angles of attack and
side-slip, also including the deflection of the con-
trol surfaces. With these results it was concluded
that configuration 4 had the highest L/D, followed
by configuration 3 and then 1. Configuration 2 had
the lowest L/D. This study also provided the aero-
dynamic coefficients needed to develop the FDM
and assess the aircraft behaviour.
The determination of the aircraft dynamic be-
haviour was made using MATLAB® and Simulink® .
In a first instance, the dynamic matrix was built for
both longitudinal and lateral motion, and the poles,
natural frequencies and damping of each mode
were obtained for all configurations. This analysis
was made for a range of cruise speeds between
10 and 35 m/s. The results obtained allowed to
conclude that all the modes were stable with the
exception of the spiral, which got less unstable as
the speed increased. Next, a Simulink® model was
created to assess the dynamics of configuration 1.
This model corroborated the results previously ob-
tained.
The manufacture of the aircraft followed, were the
spars were made of carbon fiber tubes and the air-
frame was 3D printed. Low torsional rigidity was
detected on the fuselage due to the lack of imple-
mentation of 3D printed connectors.
With the aircraft built, experimental tests were con-
ducted to determine the inertia, which was used to
update the FDM. The modes behaviour remain the
same, with the exception of the short period, which
became non oscillatory at higher speeds.
A wing static load test at 3g load was conducted
to assess, qualitatively, the structure behaviour,
which was within expected.
Lastly, hover tests were conducted where the per-
formance of the overall aircraft structure was as-
sessed. The lack of torsional rigidity was visible
when performing yaw maneuvers, nonetheless the
aircraft’s structure was able to withstand the loads
produced in VTOL flight mode.
and its design validated, the project can move on
to the remaining configurations, having configura-
tion 4 has a end goal.
Along the way, the manufacture process of the lift-
ing surfaces can be improved by the use of foam
machining (CNC) and the application of carbon
fiber layers to their surface, for improved structural
stiffness and weight reduction.
References
[1] F. E. C. Culick. The Wright Brothers: First aero-
nautical engineers and test pilots. AIAA Jour-
nal, 41(6):985–1006, June 2003.
[2] Joseph P. Landfield and Dario Rajkovict. Ca-
nard/tail comparison for an advanced variable-
sweep-wing fighter. Journal of Aircraft,
23(6):449–454, June 1986.
[3] Warren F. Phillips. Mechanics of Flight. John
Wiley & Sons, 2nd edition, 2010. ISBN 978-0-
470-53975-0.
[4] Bruce P. Selberg and Kamran Rokhsaz. Aero-
dynamic tradeoff study of conventional, canard
and trisurface aircraft systems. Journal of Air-
craft, 23(10):768–774, October 1986.
[5] John Anderson. Fundamentals of Aerodynam-
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1-259-12991-9.
[6] Bruno Miguel Wong Luı́s. Design and devel-
opment of a magnetic anomaly detection un-
manned aerial vehicle. Master’s thesis, Instituto
Superior Tecnico, 2019.
[7] Jan Roskam. Airplane Design Part VI: Prelim-
inary Calculation of Aerodynamic, Thrust and
Power Characteristics. DARcorporation, 1nd
edition, 1987. ISBN 978-1884885525.

5.1. Future Work

For future work, a reinforcement of the fuselage
structure can be performed, mitigating the torsional
problems encountered.
There are plans to fly configuration 1 as soon as
possible, with different flight tests in mind, such as
detecting sunken ships with the magnetic sensor
(Qu-spin). Once configuration 1 has been flown

10