Investigation and Characterization of a Cycloidal Rotor for Application to a Micro-Air Vehicle

In recent years, interest has been growing in a new class of very small flight vehicles called micro air vehicles (MAVs). The use of cycloidal propulsion for such a vehicle has some advantages over other configurations that make it an attractive alternative to fixed-wing and rotary-wing vehicles. In a cycloidal blade system, a series of blades rotate around an axis of rotation oriented parallel to both the blades and the horizon. As the blades rotate about the axis, their pitch angle is varied periodically. This paper investigates a small scale cycloidal rotor to determine its viability for use on a micro air vehicle…

Contents

Introduction
1.1 Problem Statement
1.1.1 MAV Definition
1.1.2 MAV Missions
1.1.3 MAV Considerations
1.2 MAV Configurations
1.2.1 Fixed Wing
1.2.2 Rotary Wing
1.2.3 Unconventional
1.3 Previous Work/State of the Art
1.4 Research Aims/Present Work/Approach
1.5 Thesis Outline
2 Operating Principles of Cycloidal Rotor
2.1 Operation
2.2 Advantages
2.3 Disadvantages
3 Cycloidal Rotor Analytical Model
3.1 Rotor Coordinate System
3.2 Forces and Moments
3.3 Motion of Pitch Mechanism
3.4 Program Implementation
3.5 Streamtube Theory
3.6 Power
3.7 Computational Predictions
4 Experimental Rotor Design and Construction
4.1 First Generation Prototype
4.1.1 Rotor Design
4.1.2 Test Setup
4.1.3 Problems
4.2 Second Generation Prototype
4.2.1 Design
4.2.2 Test Setup
5 Experimental Results and Discussion
5.1 Non-Dimensionalized Coefficients
5.2 Thrust
5.3 Offset Eccentricity
5.4 Power
5.5 Efficiency
5.6 Pressure Measurements
6 Conceptual Design of Cyclo-MAV
6.1 Design Elements
7 Conclusions and Future Work
7.1 Conclusions
7.2 Future Work
Bibliography

Author: Parsons, Eric Shawn

Source: University of Maryland

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