Design, development, and flight testing of a 70-gram micro quad-cyclocopter

Abstract

This paper discusses the development of a micro air vehicle scale quad-cyclocopter for the purpose of investigating cyclorotor application to low Reynolds number ([Formula: see text]) flight. The 70-gram vehicle is the lightest quad-cyclocopter developed to date by an order of magnitude and only the second to achieve forward flight. It utilized two counter-rotating pairs of cyclorotors operating at [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] to generate thrust and balance the reaction torque. Each cyclorotor had two control parameters, thrust direction and magnitude, giving the quad-cyclocopter eight independent control parameters. Flight tests were conducted to demonstrate several unique maneuvers made possible by the over-actuated system: changing pitch attitude in a point hover and forward translation via thrust vectoring. Data was collected for longitudinal maneuvers to compare forward flight performance when using strictly thrust vectoring for propulsion versus pitching without thrust vectoring. Similar performance was observed between the two modes for the achieved speeds.