108
1, MARCH 2004
Micro Air Vehicle: Configuration, Analysis,
Fabrication, and Test
Huaiyu Wu, Member, IEEE, Dong Sun, Member, IEEE, and Zhaoying Zhou, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper presents the development of two electri-
cally powered micro air vehicle (MAV) prototypes with wingspans
of 380 and 360 mm, respectively. A miniature flight control system
is constructed using small and light components. A vision system
consisting of a micro radio frequency (RF) transmitter and a
miniature vision-receiving antenna with a low-noise amplifier is
designed, which exhibits advantages over commercial ones. The
aerodynamics of several airfoil sections at low chord Reynolds
numbers are theoretically analyzed, for the layout of on-board
components and the airfoil design. A small-sized propulsion/power
testing setup is developed to measure and analyze the static per-
formance of the motor/propeller/battery combination used for
MAV prototype. The materials and methods used to build MAV
prototypes are also presented. Two MAV prototypes, TH380 and
TH360, have been successfully tested in the flight, where TH360
MAV with a payload of a home-made micro vision system can
acquire the images of objects and transmit them back to the
ground station.
Index Terms—Micro air vehicle (MAV), aerodynamics, vision,
propulsion, flight test.
I. INTRODUCTION
M ICRO AIR VEHICLES (MAVs) refer to a new breed of
aircrafts that are significantly smaller than all flying ve-
hicles available today. The size of the MAV is defined as the
largest linear distance between any two points located on the
vehicle. The target dimension of MAVs is approximately 6 in,
and the development of an insect-size aircraft is expected in the
near future. Practical applications of MAVs have been recog-
nized for military missions such as battlefield reconnaissance,
damage assessment, visual surveillance, biological or chemical
agent sensing, and communications relay, and for civil missions
such as search and rescue, border patrol, air sampling, and po-
lice surveillance. As a result, investigations on MAV prototypes
have drawn great attention in recent years.
AeroVironment Inc. [1]–[3] developed the first battery-pow-
ered Black Widow MAV, which carries an off-the-shelf camera
Manuscript received August 7, 2002; revised June 10, 2003 and August 29,
2003. This work was supported in part by Tsinghua University’s 985 Major
Research Program “Micro air vehicles (MAVs)” under Grant 201011-013, and
in part by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative
Region, China, under Grant CityU 1124/03E.
H. Wu was with the MEMS Laboratory, Department of Precision Instruments
and Mechanology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. He is now with
School of Information Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Science
and Technology, Wuhan, China (e-mail: wuhy98@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn).
D. Sun is with the Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Engi-
neering Management, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong
(e-mail: medsun@cityu.edu.hk).
Z. Zhou is with the MEMS Laboratory, Department of Precision Instruments
and Mechanology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China (e-mail:
wuhy98@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn; zhouzy@ntl.pim.tsinghua.edu.cn).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMECH.2004.823885
1083-4435/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
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IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 9, NO.
that downlinks a video image to the pilot on the ground
to guide the operation of the vehicle. Lockheed Sanders
[4]–[6] developed a MicroSTAR MAV prototype with a 5-g
navigation system directed by the ground station for heading
control. Naval Research Laboratory [7]–[9] developed two
micro tactical expendable MAVs, which are hand-launched,
dual-propeller and fixed-wing air vehicles, with wingspans
of less than 450 mm, depending on the payload weight. Ifju
et al. [10], [12], and other studies[11] and [13], developed
a flexible-wing MAV with a wingspan of less than 450 mm,
using biologically inspired design and the modern composite
materials. Morris and Holden [14] developed several internal
combustion engine (ICE) MAV prototypes including Trochoid
and Helirocket MAVs, which exhibit abilities of autonomous
taking-off, hovering, lateral translation in light winds, and
landing. A new electromechanical multimode insect named
Entomopter MAV is under development by Michelson and
Reece [15], and Hollingum [16]. This kind of vehicle will
be powered by a reciprocating chemical muscle that converts
chemical energy into motion through a direct noncombustive
chemical reaction. Patel et al. [17] are developing a fully
solar powered miniature aircraft with a wingspan of 760 mm.
In the field of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS),
Pornsin-sirirak et al. [18]–[20] developed a battery-powered
ornithopter Microbat MAV with a weight of 11 g, which could
fly for 5–18 s. Fearing et al. [21], Yan et al.[22], Koo and
Sastry [23], and Shim et al. [24] developed a micromechanical
flying insect with the target wingspan of less than 25 mm and a
target mass of 100 mg using a novel thorax fabrication method,
taking the inspiration from real insects and MEMS technology.
The ever-decreasing vehicle size and the ever-increasing
functional complexity of MAVs have presented designers with
a number of challenging problems. Several hot research topics
in the MAV design include: 1) investigation of various wing
shapes and body structures, i.e., fixed-wing, rotary-wing, flex-
ible-wing, and flapping-wing; 2) development of small-sized
and lightweight MAV prototypes; 3) validation of newly-de-
signed video camera systems carried by MAV; 4) finding out
powerful propulsion sources such as solar power, reciprocating
chemical muscle and fuel cell etc.; 5) validation of technical
integration of certain components used in MAV; 6) testing
maximum flight endurance; and 7) calculation of the vehicle
aerodynamics at the low speed.
This paper describes our latest solutions to many issues men-
tioned above. The following problems have been addressed:
1) Investigation of several important wing reference indices
such as the mean aerodynamic chord (MAC), the center of
gravity (CG), and the aerodynamic performance of wing
WU et al.: MAV: CONFIGURATION, ANALYSIS, FABRICATION, AND TEST 109

Fig. 1. Mission profile of MAV tests.

Fig. 2. Overview of the system configuration of MAV.

sections used for MAV prototype at low chord Reynolds

number.
2) Development of a micro vision system including a micro
radio frequency transmitter and a vision receiving antenna
with a high-gain low-noise amplifier (LNA).
3) Development of a small-sized propulsion and power
testing setup to examine the static performance of the
motor-propeller-battery combination so that the optimum
propulsion and power configuration for MAV can be
chosen.
4) Building two electrically powered MAV prototypes with
Fig. 3. Receiver and servo.
wingspans of 380 and 360 mm, respectively.
5) Flight test to complete the mission as shown in Fig. 1
while acquiring the color images of the target by a
home-made micro vision system.

II. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION

The system configuration plays an important role in the
design of MAV prototypes since characteristics of the on-
board components, such as weight, size, and performance of
each physical element, significantly affect the MAV flight
performance. Fig. 2 illustrates a typical system configuration
of a MAV prototype, which consists of an onboard section
and a ground section. The onboard section includes a vision
transmitting subsystem, a flight control system, and MAV body.
The ground section includes a vision receiving subsystem and
an RC transmitter.
A. Controller and Sensors
A basic MAV flight control system includes a miniature
receiver with a wire antenna, two miniature servos to drive
elevons, an electronic speed controller, and a radio controller
with an uplink command transmitter. In addition, some de-
tecting sensors such as angular rate gyro and attitude sensor
are also needed to provide the flight state information to the
control system.
Due to the limited payload capability and small size of the
MAV, the criteria of weight and size of MAV components be-
come important concerns in the MAV design. There are sev-
eral commercially available devices that could meet our require-
ment. Fig. 3 shows a commercially available receiver and a servo
used in our MAV prototypes. The micro-sized receiver operates
Fig. 4. Speed controller and gyro.
at 40 MHz, weighs 5.4 g without plastic housing, and has the di-
mensions of 20 30 9.5 mm [see Fig. 3(a)]. The lightweight
servo (Pico STD) weighs 5.4 g without plastic case, has the di-
mensions of 22.8 9.5 15.5 mm, and can output the torque of
0.53 kg-cm [see Fig. 3(b)].
The electronic speed controller weighs 4.5 g, operates at
the current of 2–5 A, and has the dimensions of 7.6 20 5
mm [see Fig. 4(a)]. The radio controller (Futaba PCM 1024)
is packed with all advanced features in an 8-channel system,
with 1024 modulation of pulse position modulation or pulse
code modulation. Two miniature piezoelectric angular rate
gyros (PG-03) without a plastic case [see Fig. 4(b)] were used
to control pitch and roll axes in our MAV prototypes. Each
gyro weighs 4.8 g without a plastic case, has the dimensions of
26 27 11.3 mm, and is suitable to various radio controllers
provided by Futaba, JR, Multiplex, and High Tech., etc. A
detailed control design for pitch and roll can be found in [25].

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110 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 9, NO. 1, MARCH 2004

Fig. 5. Motor and home-made 600-mAh NiMH battery.

B. Propulsion System Fig. 6. Block diagram of the home-made vision system.

A compact and lightweight propulsion system helps to re-

duce the size and the weight of a MAV. For the time being,
there are two kinds of propulsion systems that can be used: the
electric motor and the ICE. The electric motor has advantages
such as low noise, high reliability, and less vibration production
than the ICE. The ICE has a high thrust-to-weight ratio, low
cost, and can operate for long endurance when using standard
or chemically enhanced fossil fuel. However, the ICE in the cur-
rent market suffers from a high level of noise and vibrations that
degrade MAVs surveillance capability. Based on these concerns
we chose an electric motor with a propeller in our prototypes.
The battery packs provide power to both the motor and the radio
receiver. Fig. 7. CMOS video camera and home-made RF transmitter.
A direct drive motor was used in the prototype TH380 MAV,
with a rated voltage of 6 V and the rated speed of 13 000 r/min. TABLE I
In the prototype TH360 MAV, a new coreless motor with gear SPECIFICATIONS OF CMOS VIDEO CAMERA
7:1 [see Fig. 5(a)] was used and proved to be a more powerful
solution with small size and lightweight. Both the direct drive
motor and the coreless motor can operate anywhere from 5 to 7
cells at a power range of 8–15 W, and are more efficient at the
speed of 9 000–12 000 r/min.
In the prototype TH380, a 5-cell 6-V 300-mAh Nickel-Cad-
mium (NiCD) battery pack was used for its ability to deliver color video camera [see Fig. 7(a)] and a home-made radio
much higher currents than similar-sized cells due to its frequency transmitter [see Fig. 7(b)]. The CMOS video camera
lower internal resistance. In the prototype TH360, which was a pinhole-lens color camera with an 80 field of view.
requires lighter and smaller battery, a home-made 600-mAh The RF transmitter modulates the input of analog video
Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery was used. This battery stream using frequency modulation, and generates a RF output
weights only 21 g and has the dimensions of 71 30 5 mm, signal. The home-made RF transmitter weights 8 g (with a
as shown in Fig. 5(b). ring transmission antenna) and operates at the frequency of
1.18–1.45 GHz with output power of 56 mW. Tables I and
C. Vision System II give specifications of the CMOS video camera and the RF
transmitter, respectively.
The vision system is designed to meet the specified surveil- Fig. 8 shows a home-made spiral reception antenna, a
lance requirement for acquiring real-time images and transmit- home-made LNA, and a commercial analog satellite receiver
ting them back to the aircraft operator on the ground. Due to the used in the ground image reception subsystem. The spiral
lack of a satisfactory video camera system in the current market axis-directional radiation antenna was used to obtain the
that can be directly applied to our MAV prototype, we designed desired direction angle, where the maximum radiation direction
a micro vision system by ourselves. This vision system consists of the antenna is in line with its axis-direction. LNA with a
of two parts: the onboard video image transmission subsystem gain of 15 dB was designed using Microwave Office 2001
and the ground video image reception subsystem, as shown in software. The analog satellite receiver is a commercial device
Fig. 6. (HY2000M) operating at the frequency of 800–2150 MHz.
Fig. 7 shows the onboard camera transmission subsystem Table III gives specifications of the spiral reception antenna
that consists of a complementary metal–oxide–silicon (CMOS) and the LNA device.

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WU et al.: MAV: CONFIGURATION, ANALYSIS, FABRICATION, AND TEST 111

TABLE II is easy to build because it has the same cross section from tip
SPECIFICATIONS OF HOME-MADE RF TRANSMITTER to tip. This platform, however, is not aerodynamically perfect
because the tip vortex is strong and hence the downwash near
the tip is large. The closer the segment lies to the tip, the more
influence caused by the vortex. Since the section angle of attack
near the tip is almost zero, the load carried by each chordwise
section falls off sharply at the tip although the wing chord is
constant. For the elliptical wing, it has been found by theory
and experiment that a load distribution exactly matching the
elliptic area can be produced, and the maximum lift coefficients
can be obtained along the entire span while the effective angle
of attack is the same everywhere. As a result, the elliptical wing
employs stall characteristics simultaneously. Unfortunately,
such perfection of having simultaneous stall characteristics is
rarely achieved since the wing is usually slightly yawed prior
to the stall and thus the tip stalling of a mild kind is caused.
As for the tapered wing, it is shown that tip stalling likely
occurs when the load distribution is not proportional to the area
and therefore the tips are overloaded. The efficiency may be
improved by making the load distribution match the area more,
i.e., design a moderately tapered wing.
Through analysis of the above typical candidates, namely
rectangular, elliptical and tapered wings, a compromise triangle
wing planform was finally used, as shown in Fig. 9. The triangle
Fig. 8. Image reception equipment. planform is a proper combination of the tapered and rectangular
plans. The tip-stalling point can be moved backward to some ex-
TABLE III tent by the rear rectangular panel with a sweptforward trailing
SPECIFICATIONS OF SPIRAL RECEPTION ANTENNA AND LNA
edge. Moreover, the triangle with a sweptback angle of less than
45 has a slight positive dihedral effect that can enhance the
flight stability of the vehicle at the low speed. In addition, the
triangle planform is easy to build.

B. Estimation of Required Lift Coefficient

The lift coefficient of an airfoil is an important index that
relates its lift-producing capability to air speed, air density, wing
area and angle of attack. For a fixed-wing aircraft, the required
lift coefficient is given by [18]
III. AERODYNAMICS ANALYSIS (1)
In order to layout all physical components properly in the
where is the gross take-off weight, kg/m , the
MAV, some important wing reference indices such as the wing
air density at 15 C that corresponds to the dry air at standard
planform, the MAC, the CG, and the airfoil section must be de-
atmospheric pressure, is the air speed, and is the wing area.
termined. The components layout design based on CG can en-
Aspect ratio (AR) is a measure of the slenderness of a wing
sure the balance of the vehicle and, hence, guarantee more stable
and concurrently the efficiency of the wing. Note that the higher
and safe flight. Furthermore, the aerodynamic performance of
the AR of the wing, the more efficient the wing. AR is defined
airfoil sections at low Reynolds number must be investigated so
by
that the efficient wing shapes (i.e., with great lift–drag ratio) can
be obtained. AR (2)
A. Choice of Wing Planform In the prototype TH360 MAV, the gross take-off weight is
There are several typical wing planforms used in the airplane 120 g, the wing area is 0.0891 m , and the wingspan is 360
design, such as rectangular, elliptical, tapered and triangle mm. Thus, the AR is AR , and the required lift coefficient
wings. Two major factors that must be considered while varies from 0.5986 to 0.1, as the cruise speed varies from
choosing the wing planform are tip-stalling and ease of the 6 to 15 m/s.
wing fabrication [26], [27]. For the rectangular wing, there is
an inherently safe stalling characteristic in that it does not stall C. Determination of MAC and CG
informally. The center section stalls first while the wing tips are The CG is a point about which the nose-heavy and the tail-
still below the stall point. Furthermore, the rectangular wing heavy moments are exactly equal in magnitude [28], [29]. As

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112 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 9, NO. 1, MARCH 2004

Fig. 10. Maximum lift coefficient.

where is the cruise speed, is the MAC, and

m /s, the air kinematic viscosity. Under the conditions
Fig. 9. Determination of MAC and CG.
that the size is less than 380 mm and the cruise speed is 8–15
m/s for our MAV prototypes, the corresponding chord Reynolds
shown in Fig. 9, the CG is ideally located along the central line number is probably within – . Note that the air-
of the fuselage, where the vertical distance between the CG and foil section aerodynamics plays an important role in the MAV
the leading edge (LE) of the wing is approximately 25% of the design with low Reynolds number, since it tells the MAV de-
MAC. signer how to choose an appropriate airfoil or wing cross section
The MAC is defined as the chord-weighted average chord of the aircraft. By the VisualFoil software, we investigated some
length of the wing [30], [31], which can be given by important aerodynamic characteristics of several airfoils, which
include the maximum lift coefficient, the minimum drag coef-
MAC (3) ficient, the maximum lift-to-drag ratio, the lift–drag polar, the
lift coefficient versus the angle of attack at different Reynolds
numbers, and pressure coefficient of the wing surface.
where is the coordinate representing the wing chord, and Through comparison based on the lift coefficient and the
the index . For a linearly tapered (trapezoidal) wing, drag coefficient, three candidates of Eppler airfoils were finally
the MAC is given by chosen: Eppler 1 with a thickness of 10% chord and a camber
of 4% chord, Eppler 2 with a thickness of 10% chord and a
MAC (4) camber of 5% chord, and Eppler 3 with a thickness of 10%
chord and a camber of 6% chord. The resulting airfoil section
The sweep distance is represented by was determined from the following aerodynamics analysis on
three Eppler airfoils, as shown Figs. 10–15.
(5) Fig. 10 shows the maximum lift coefficient versus
Reynolds number, which represents the influence of different
The MAC distance from the root wing is given by cambers of the given airfoils on the lift. As shown, the lift co-
efficient for the more cambered airfoil before stalling
(6) is greater than that for the less cambered airfoil. In particular,
the selected airfoil with a camber of 5% chord has a moderate
where the can be seen in Fig. 9. performance within the Reynolds number range of 1 10 to
In the prototype TH360 MAV, given 360 mm, 5 10 .
135 mm, and 200 mm, we then have MAC 264.55 Fig. 11 shows the minimum drag coefficient versus
mm, 84.85 mm, and 84.85 mm. The CG is further Reynolds number, which represents the influences of different
determined by the distance away from the pointed end, i.e., cambers on the drag. Note that the smaller the drag coefficient,
% MAC 150.98 mm. the smaller the drag force imposed on the vehicle. It can be seen
that the airfoil drag with a camber of 5% chord is smaller than
D. Airfoil Section Performance that of the other two, when the chord Reynolds number is below
The typical chord Reynolds number for a fixed-wing aircraft, 5 10 . Note that when the Reynolds number is over 5 10 ,
is determined by [4] the change in maximum lift coefficient levels off (see Fig. 10)
where as the minimum drag coefficient begins to increase (see
(7) Fig. 11). This phenomenon shows that the Reynolds number of

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WU et al.: MAV: CONFIGURATION, ANALYSIS, FABRICATION, AND TEST 113

Fig. 11. Minimum drag coefficient. Fig. 13. Lift–drag polar curves.

Fig. 12. Maximum lift-to-drag ratio. Fig. 14. Lift coefficient versus angle of attack.

5 10 for such airfoil is a critical point for increment of the

lift and decrement of the drag.
Fig. 12 shows the maximum lift-to-drag ratio
versus Reynolds number, which represents
the maximum aerodynamic efficiency of the given airfoil
section since the aerodynamic efficiency is defined in term
of the lift-to-drag ratio. It can be seen that the lift-to-drag
ratio of the airfoil with a camber of 5% chord is larger than
that of the other two.
Fig. 13 shows the lift–drag polar plots of the
airfoil with a thickness of 10% chord and a camber of 5% chord
at the chord Reynolds numbers of 8 10 –7 10 . It can be
seen that the lift decreases and the drag increases rapidly when
the chord Reynolds number is below 1 10 .
Fig. 14 shows the lift coefficient versus the angle of attack
for the chosen airfoils at the Reynolds numbers of 2 10 and Fig. 15. Surface pressure coefficient.
3 10 . It is shown that the stalling angle of attack occurs as the
Reynolds number decreases, and the useful range of angles of corresponding to different angles of attack . The angle of
attack for the low-Reynolds airfoil before stalling is smaller than attack is defined as the angle between the chord line and the
that for the high-Reynolds airfoil. Furthermore, the more cam- relative wind.
bered airfoil tends to reach higher value of before stalling As can be seen from the figures, the airfoil performance de-
than the less cambered airfoil. teriorates rapidly when the chord Reynolds number is below
Fig. 15 shows the surface pressure distribution over the 3 10 . The airfoil with a camber of 5% chord and a thickness
airfoil with a thickness of 10% chord and a camber of 5% chord of 10% chord has a minimum drag coefficient (see Fig. 11), and

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114
Fig. 16. Proposed airfoil section used for MAV.
Fig. 17. Airfoil sections used to build the ribs of MAV.
a moderate lift-to-drag ratio (see Figs. 10 and 12) within the in-
terested Reynolds number range of 1 10 –3 10 . Therefore,
the airfoil with a camber of 5% chord and a thickness of 10%
chord is finally chosen for our MAV prototypes. The proposed
airfoil is shown in Fig. 16.
To manufacture the wing, the coordinates of an air-
foil section are obtained by VisualFoil software, as shown in
Fig. 16. In practice, the surface coordinate system is oriented at
the trailing edge on the upper surface, forward along the upper
surface to the leading edge, and back to the trailing edge along
the lower surface. In a similar manner, all other airfoil sections
or ribs can be obtained, as shown in Figs. 17–18. The distance
between every two ribs is , where denotes the wingspan
(see Fig. 9).
E. Layout of Onboard Equipments
From the view of multiobjective optimization, several criteria
such as weight reduction, components sizing, onboard power
consumption, RF sensor range of detection, propulsion require-
ments, and autonomy in term of control and energy etc., have
been used in the MAV design and integration. In addition, some
design constraints such as flight duration, operational radius,
and maximum altitude must be considered as well. Certain com-
ponents such as small color video system and power cell have
been developed by ourselves because we couldn’t find proper
ones that are commercially available. For stability and good trim
of the vehicle, almost all components were placed along the cen-
terline of the narrow fuselage. In particular, the center of the
entire MAV weight is located at the CG along the longitudinal
axis. Fig. 18 illustrates the rough layout of onboard equipments
installed on our TH360 MAV prototype.
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IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 9, NO. 1, MARCH 2004
Fig. 18. Layout of onboard equipments.
IV. PROTOTYPE FABRICATION
A few of materials such as balsa, styrofoam, plywood, trans-
parent skin, carbon fiber, and Kevlar, can be employed for proto-
type fabrication. A comparison has been performed in aspects of
weight, strength, stiffness, ease of fabrication, and the resulting
flight performance including flying stability, payload capacity
and maneuverability.
To build the prototype TH380 MAV, we chose styrofoam for
making the airframe for easy fabrication, plywood for making
the engine mounting for its strength, and balsa for making three
fixed tail fins and elevons for its light weight and easy fabrica-
tion. Based on analysis of the aerodynamic characteristics, we
proposed to use a triangle airframe with a sweptback angle of
less than 45 , and the airfoil section with a thickness of 10%
chord and a camber of 5% chord. The vertical tail area of our
MAV prototype includes the ventral fin and the wingtip fins. The
total area of the vertical tail is less than 6% of the wing area, and
the ventral fin area is about two times of the wingtip fin.
To further build the prototype TH360, we chose carbon fiber
strips for making the leading edges of two wings and the rib of
lateral airfoil, and balsa for making airfoil spars, three fixed tail
fins and elevons, respectively. Both airframe and airfoil sections
used in TH360 were the same as in TH380. The main procedures
to build the fuselage and the wing of TH360 are described as
following: The first step is to prepare airfoil ribs, fixed-tail fins,
elevons, and carbon fiber strips based on the specified length,
size, and shape. The second step is to build the airframe through
gluing the above parts together with cyanoacrylate adhesive.
A narrow compartment was made along fuselage centerline by
two long plywood strips. The elevons were hinged to the tail
spars so that the elevons are free to swing up and down. The
three fixed vertical tailplates were glued to the left tip chord,
the right tip chord, and the rear part of root chord, respectively.
The third step is to wrap the entire wing using a transparent
heat-shrunk plastic foil. The final step is to install all onboard
components to the MAV, including motor with the propeller and
its mounting at the front of the fuselage, receiver, gyro, speed
controller, video image transmitter and battery inside the com-
partment, two servos at the rear part of the compartment, video
WU et al.: MAV: CONFIGURATION, ANALYSIS, FABRICATION, AND TEST
Fig. 19. TH380 (left) and TH360 (right) prototype MAVs.
TABLE IV
WEIGHT SUMMARY OF PROTOTYPE MAVs
camera underneath the compartment, and connecting rods and
horns to the elevon control surfaces. The two prototype vehicles
are shown in Fig. 19. The weights of some onboard component
are given in Table IV.
In addition, to measure and analyze the static performance
(i.e., static thrust, speed, discharge current and discharge en-
durance) of the propeller-motor-cell combination possibly used
in MAV prototypes, a small-scale testing system was developed,
as shown in Fig. 20. The testing system consists of the following
main parts: pressure sensor, differential amplifier, analog–dig-
ital converter, voltage/current selection switch, digital display,
speed display, and optical-electronic detector. The setup uses a
precise pressure transducer to measure the propulsion generated
by the motor, and uses an optical-electric detector to measure the
speed of different propeller-motor combinations corresponding
to various voltages and currents.
Fig. 21 shows the static thrust versus time for different
propellers driven by the same motor and batteries (5-cell 6-V
300-mAh NiCD battery). Three kinds of propellers were used
in the test. They are: propeller 1 with an 8-in diameter and
3.8-in pitch, propeller 2 with a 7-in diameter and 4-in pitch,
and propeller 3 with a 7-in diameter and 6-in pitch. Note that
the static performance considerably depends on the propeller’s
pitch and diameter when other conditions are the same. The
experimental results in Fig. 21 demonstrated that all thrusts
gradually decrease as time increases because the power of bat-
teries reduces. Propeller 1 generates the smallest static thrust.
Propeller 2 generates the moderate static thrust. Propeller 3
generates the largest static thrust. In addition, Propeller 3 has
a moderate weight amongst the three propellers. Therefore,
Propeller 3 exhibits the advantage of the comprehensive static
performance over others.
It should be pointed out here that the static testing is only
part of the analysis of the propeller performance in the early
stage, and an analysis of the propeller performance under the
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115
Fig. 20. Setup of home-made propulsion testing system.
Fig. 21. Static thrust versus time for different propellers.
desired flight conditions would be beneficial in selecting the op-
timal propeller for the vehicle. Specifically, some analysis ap-
proaches such as a simple vortex theory (or even simpler mo-
mentum theory) could be used to select the best blade angle and
diameter for the proposed flight conditions. This work will be
further investigated in the future.
V. FLIGHT TESTS
To demonstrate the feasibility of the developed prototypes,
we successfully performed flight tests of TH380 MAV without
carrying payload and TH360 MAV with carrying a payload, re-
spectively. TH380 MAV and TH360 MAV in flight tests are
shown in Figs. 22 and 23, each remotely controlled by an oper-
ator using a radio controller on the ground. In the test of TH380
MAV, the flight took off by hand launch, flied over a square
area of 200 200 m for more than five minutes at a height of
approximately 100 m above the ground, and finally glided to a
wheat field for avoidance of body destruction. The flight test of
TH360 MAV was taken by carrying a payload of a home-made
onboard vision system. The flight took off by hand launch, flied
over a playground for more than five minutes at a height of ap-
proximately 100 m, and finally glided to the grass ground. The
onboard video camera and the home-made transmitter success-
fully detected the playground below the vehicle. Fig. 24 illus-
trated the real-time images that were acquired by the onboard
camera and transmitted to a laptop workstation on the ground.
It has also been shown that electrically powered MAV produced
so low noise in the flight test that we hardly heard any sound of
the motor while being 40–50 m away from the MAVs. Table V
gives the performance summary of the MAV prototypes.
According to these primary experimental results, some flight
performance can be briefly summarized. Firstly, the flight en-
durance mainly depends on the battery used. In our tests, all
flying times are less than ten minutes, to avoid any damage
116
Fig. 22. TH380 MAV in taking-off (left), cruising (middle), and landing (right).
Fig. 23. TH360 MAV in taking-off (left), cruising (middle), and landing (right).
Fig. 24. Playground image transmitted from TH360 MAV.
TABLE V
SUMMARY OF PERFORMANCE FOR PROTOTYPE MAVs
of the prototype due to energy exhausted. Secondly, the max-
imum flight altitude is limited by the communication ability
between the onboard receiver and the ground control station,
and vision system ability. In our tests, the video signal obtained
in the ground station is not so clear if the altitude of the MAV
is higher than 150 meters. Thirdly, the lift to drag of the MAV
prototype was recently examined by a small wind tunnel test at
Hong Kong. The maximum is more than 1.5 as the
angle of attack is over 5 . This work will be presented in detail in
the future. Note that the stall speed was not measured in our tests
due to the lack of a small-scale and lightweight speedometer.
The onboard sensing device for stall speed is under develop-
ment now.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Indian Institute of Technology. Downloaded on October 3, 2009 at 09:56 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 9, NO. 1, MARCH 2004
VI. CONCLUSION
Two electrically powered MAVs with different wingspans
were successfully developed. One is with the wingspan of
380 mm and the weight of 154 g, and another one is with
the wingspan of 360 mm and the weight of 120 g including
a payload of a micro color video imaging system. The MAV
development includes system configuration, aerodynamics
analysis, prototype fabrication, and flight tests, which are all
discussed in detail. The real-time images of the ground target
were transmitted from the onboard video camera to the ground
station. The successful flight tests validated the feasibility of
the design and fabrication of such small-sized aircraft.
The future work will focus on the following aspects: to
perform further analysis of the aerodynamics by using low
Reynolds number wind tunnel tests; to further optimize the
design based on the different criteria such as weight reduction,
wing size, power consumption, propulsion requirements and
attitude control variables, etc.; to investigate the real-time
control against disturbances such as wind and wave climate; to
develop a powerful and lightweight power source such as fuel
cell, solar energy and wireless energy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank all other research team mem-
bers for their contributions to this project. Special thanks are
owed to Dr. S. Xiong, Dr. X. Wang, Dr. X. Ye, Dr. Y. Li, Dr. R.
Zhu for their great support, and G. Bao, W. Bi, Y. Song, T. Yu, F.
Ji, and Q. Liu for their contributions in the design, fabrication,
and tests of the MAV prototypes.
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Huaiyu Wu (M’02) received the B.Sc. and M.Sc.
degrees in electrical engineering from Wuhan
University of Technology, Wuhan, China, and the
Wuhan University of Science and Technology,
Wuhan, China, in 1982 and 1989, respectively,
and the Ph.D. degree in instruments science and
technology, from Tsinghua University, Beijing,
China, in 2003.
He joined the Wuhan University of Science
and Technology in 1989, where he is currently a
Professor in the School of Information Science and
Engineering. From March 2002 to February 2003, he was a Research Associate
in the City University of Hong Kong. His current research interests include
intelligent system and control, robotics and automation, time series analysis
and modeling, and aerodynamics.
Dr. Wu was the recipient of the Special Prize of China Instrument Society
Scholarships in 2000.
Dong Sun (S’95–M’00) received the B.Sc. and M.Sc.
degrees in mechatronics from Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China, in 1990 and 1994, respectively, and
the Ph.D. degree in robotics and automation from the
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, in
1997.
He was a Post-Doctoral Researcher with the
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, and
a Research and Development Engineer for an
Ontario company, Agile Systems Inc., Waterloo,
ON, Canada. Since 2000, he has been an Assistant
Professor with the Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering
Management, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. His research
interests lie in robotics and automation, motion controls, and mechatronics.
Dr. Sun is a Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario, Canada. He
has received a number of awards/fellowships such as Hong Kong Award for In-
dustry, Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Funds, Alexander von Humboldt
Fellowship of Germany, and State Science and Technology Progress Award of
China, etc.
Zhaoying Zhou (SM’02) received the graduate de-
gree from the Department of Precision Instruments,
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1961.
From 1979 to 1981, he was a Visiting Scientist
in the Department of Automatic Control, Lund
University, Lund, Sweden. He is a Professor in
the Department of Precision Instruments and
Mechanology, and Chairman, Academic Committee
of the Micro/Nano Technology Research Center,
Tsinghua University. His recent research interest
is in the fields of measurement, control and micro-
electromechanical systems. He has published more than 300 scientific and
technical papers, and holds ten patents.
Prof. Zhou is the Editor of the International Journal of Micromechatronics
and the Vice President of Chinese Instrument Society. He is the recipient of three
national awards and ten Ministry awards of Science & Technology Invention and
Achievement.