Additive Manufacturing of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to design a process of manufacturing an unmanned aerial vehicle. The evaluated aircraft will be the ‘Bubak’ which belongs to the A3 category. This aircraft is usually made out of balsa wood and plywood and its wings are covered with aircraft-grade paper. Traditionally most of the parts are made by cutting and sanding the materials mentioned above by hand. The rapid advancement of additive manufacturing technology in recent years has made it possible to use this new approach to manufacture most of the parts of this aircraft. Therefore this article evaluates the ins and outs of both approaches to see how they compare to each other. Because this type of aircraft is designed to stay in the air using as little energy as possible, it is a good candidate for making an additively manufactured unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which can be used in a variety of applications including remote areas mapping or agricultural land assessments. Arguably, the most important and complicated part of the aircraft is the wing. For this reason, the manufacturing of this part is evaluated.