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AEROSPACE INDUSTRY FOCUS

Honey, I shrunk the plane


A project to develop
handheld
reconnaissance
aircraft faces several
engineering
challenges.
STEPHEN J. MRAZ
Senior Editor

I
f military planners had their
way, infantry platoons would
be equipped with small, dis-
posable aircraft that could
scout ahead, detect chemical and
biological agents, and even tag
buildings and vehicles as targets
for smart bombs. The planners
complain that current Unmanned
Air Vehicles (UAVs) are so large
they need a truck to cart them
around, complicated enough to
need a specialized crew to launch
and operate, and so expensive
they cant be discarded on the
battlefield. And in the end, infor-
mation gathered by UAVs rarely,
if ever, travels down the chain of A see-through engineering mock-up of the next-generation
command fast enough to platoon Black Widow, a micro air vehicle from AeroVironment, shows its
level where it could save lives. hardware. The real thing will have a solid Styrofoam structure
To give companies and re- with balsa-wood reinforcement.
search institutes incentive to de-
velop handheld reconnaissance vehicles, the neers at Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
Defense Advanced Research Projects ogys Lincoln Labs, a 6-in.-long, propeller-
Agency (Darpa) is funding research on mi- driven aircraft with a lift-to-drag ratio of
cro air vehicles (MAVs), one-time-use air- about 5 needs 2.5 W of shaft power for cruis-
craft that measure less than 6 in. in any di- ing; double that for climbing and maneuver-
mension, weigh less than 4 oz., and cost less ing. This makes the majority of standard
than $1,000. Darpa envisions them as being model-airplane engines too big for the job. The MAV from Intelligent Automation
able to carry out real-time imaging, naviga- Still, internal combustion engines seem the Inc., has a fuselage made of
tion, and communication and have a range of most likely candidates. vacuum-formed polycarbonate and
6 miles, a top speed of 30 mph, and fly for at One design team using an internal com- wings made of biased directional S-
least 20 min. Some military planners also bustion engine is at Intelligent Automation glass and epoxy skin. For structural
want MAVs to be ready for urban assaults, Inc. (IAI) in Rockville, Md. Bill Harvey, and weight-saving purposes, the
with the ability to search building and disas- lead engineer, chose a 0.01-cu-in. recipro- wing skin varies from 0.025 in. at
ter sites or monitor hostage situations. cating engine, the Cox 010, to power its the root to 0.70 at the tip. The
MAV. The engine is the smallest, mass-pro- complete airframe weights about 18
GETTING AIRBORNE duced internal-combustion engine in the gm. It carries a 6-gm CMOS camera
One of the first challenges in MAV de- world and is built by Estes, the model rocket
sign is the power plant. According to engi- engine company, for aircraft hobbyists.
equipped with a panning mirror.

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With a custom made 2-in. prop,


the engine turns at 30,000 rpm
and puts out about 40 W. Harvey,
who also worked on the X-drone,
a UAV that saw action in Desert
Storm, added a tuned exhaust,
which cuts noise and adds to fuel
efficiency.
Fuel flow for the engine is cur-
rently rather high, limiting it to
5 min. of run time with the fuel
carried onboard. To increase the
flight time, well detune the en-
gine and change the air-fuel mix-
ture for economy, says Harvey.
Battery-powered motors are
also good candidates for MAV
propulsion systems. With a 60%
efficient motor, the minimum
amount of power needed is 4.2 W,
which also must be doubled for
maneuvering, according to M.I.T.
Battery power does have its ad-
vantages its more reliable and The Black
quieter than an internal-combus- Widow carries a
tion engine and needs no consum- 2-gm camera smaller
able fuel. But it would take a bat- than a sugar cube.
tery with an energy density of Future versions will have
about 800 J/gm to give the MAV vision goggles that let the
1 hr of flight time, with a hovering remote operator see what the
MAV calling for significantly aircraft is seeing.
greater densities. (Hovering air-
craft need about twice the power-
to-weight ratio as fixed-wing
flight.) A battery with this level of energy
Tech Specs
density could take at least two to three more SUBSYSTEM WEIGHT PEAK POWER AVERAGE
years of development. (grams) (mW) POWER (mW)
Still, several MAVs are being built Lithium battery 26 N/A N/A
around battery-powered flight. The Black
Gearbox 1 N/A N/A
Widow, an MAV from AeroVironment Inc.,
Simi Valley, Calif., for example, uses two Propeller 2 N/A N/A
13-gm lithium batteries that are about the Airframe 4 N/A N/A
size of a matchbox. Wired in series, they put Propulsion motor 7 4,000 2,000
out 6 V with a nominal capacity of 1-A-hr at Control actuators 1 200 200
a 20-hr rate. This drops to 0.35 A-hr when Receiver and processor 1 50 50
discharged over 20 min. The batteries,
which cost about $200 each, power an off- Transmitter 3 1,200 300
the-shelf brushless dc motor turning a modi- B&W video camera 2 150 50
fied model airplane propeller. Using this Interface circuitry 1 50 50
setup, AeroVironment engineers flew its Roll gyro 1 60 60
MAV for 16 min, covering about 9 miles. Compass 1 180 180
Overall, the propulsion system is about
Totals 50gm 5,890 mW 2,890 mW
15% efficient, according to Matt Keennon,
MAV project manager at AeroVironment.
He plans to add a gearbox so the prop can
turn slower while the motor runs faster, in Another approach to electric power, the don is building an MAV fuel cell that weighs
effect doubling the overall efficiency. They fuel cell, could benefit teams like AeroViron- less than 30 gm and produces 20 W for about
might also preheat the batteries to increase ments and its Black Widow. At IGR Enter- an hour. With the fuel cell currently being
their capacity. prises Inc. in Beachwood, Ohio, Arnold Gor- patented, Gordon is reluctant to discuss de-

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tails, but will say the solid


TAKING A PAGE FROM MOTHER NATURE fuel has an infinite shelf life
While the vast majority of teams involved in micro-air-vehicle (MAV) research are looking into prop or and doesnt care whether its
jet-powered propulsion, some, such as Robert Michelson at the Georgia Institute of Technology, are taking stored in the Saudi desert of
cues from Mother Nature. They point out that no birds or insects (or mammals, for that matter) use fixed- the Alaskan tundra. Once
wing flight, spinning blades, or jets to get airborne or stay aloft. Birds and bugs (and bats) instead use flap- activated by exposing the ce-
ping wings. And whats good enough for Mother Nature is good enough for these researchers. ramic electrolyte to the oxy-
Fixed-wing vehicles rely solely on lift generated by air flowing over the wings for flight. And this lift is gen in ambient air, the cell
directly proportional to the area of the wing and velocity of the air flowing over it. So as a vehicle grows runs to completion. It does
smaller, the less lift it can supply at a given airspeed. To compensate for this, many MAV teams increase create heat and expels gases,
the speed at which the craft flies. But this is unacceptable for indoor missions where MAVs seem to make so a heat exchanger insulates
the most sense. the unit while preheating in-
In flapping flight, however, power is a function of the following variables: vehicle mass, flapping fre- coming air. The waste heat
quency, forward speed, and wing chord, span and beat amplitude. And lift is created both through flapping and gases might find a use on
and forward velocity. So if the size of a vehicle and wing are reduced, more power and lift can be created a cramped MAV, either by
by increasing the beat frequency without affecting minimum airspeed. Taken to the extreme, then, a flap- generating more electricity or
ping vehicle with enough power can take off and land vertically; it needs no takeoff roll. Another advan- lift.
tage of flapping flight is that the wings can generate lift on both the upbeat and downbeat, allowing a vehi- Unlike normal fuel cells
cle to hover. which hold their fuel in tanks
At Georgia Tech, Michelson has developed a unique source of power, the Reciprocating Chemical and pump it into a reaction
Muscle (RCM). He describes his invention as a regenerative device that converts chemical energy into chamber, IGRs cell contains
reciprocating motion through a direct noncombustive chemical reaction. It takes advantage of the supe- allitssolidfuelinastainless-
rior energy density in chemical reactions as opposed to that of electrical energy storage. He points out that steel case about the size of a
a drop of gasoline holds far and away more energy potential than a battery of the same volume and weight. business card and 1 cm thick.
The RCM currently works on a monopropellant fuel. The device can be used to move wings up and down This makes the cell stable
or reciprocate a pair or two of scurrying feet or fins back and forth, making it suitable for powering walk- and eliminates the tank,
ing and swimming vehicles. With the RCM currently undergoing the patent process, Michelson keeps de- pump, and fuel lines that
tails on the RCMs workings under wraps. wouldnt fit on a cramped
He is, however, willing to say the device should provide more than enough power to keep an MAV air- MAV, says Gordon. Be-
borne on flapping wings. It also produces small amounts of electricity and gas, both of which can be used cause temperature and air-
onboard the aircraft. The electricity can power other subsystems, while the gas can actuate circulation-con- flow must be controlled, a
trolled airfoils or affect lift through the Coanda effect (pushing air or a gas through tiny holes in the wings simple, low-frequency (1-Hz
to increase lift at slow speeds). Other advantages of the RCM or less) microprocessor-ther-
are that it is anaerobic, allowing it to work underwater or in Georgia Tech researcher Robert Michelson mocouple system will open
oxygen-starved spaces, and it uses no ignition source, which holds the Entomopter he developed to and close a small louver.
allows it to work in explosive atmospheres. A third power-plant op-
demonstrate a Reciprocating Chemical tion, jet engines, is also being
Muscle he designed. The RCM generates explored. Researchers at
reciprocating motion, useful for flapping M.I.T., for example, are am-
wings or moving legs, directly from a bitiously trying to shrink jet
source of chemical energy. engines to the size of shirt but-
tons. Meanwhile, engineers at
M-Dot Inc., Phoenix, are
working on an MAV turbojet
roughly the size of a chicken
egg. It weighs 78 gm and puts
out 1.43 lb of thrust, the
equivalent of a little over 2 hp.
According to Bryan Seegers,
president of M-Dot, turbines
offer MAVs several advan-
tages, including high power
densities, high flight speeds,
and relatively vibration-free
flight, an important quality
for an imaging platform.
M-Dot engineers had to
develop some advanced
manufacturing processes to

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SCALING JET ENGINES DOWN, perature ceramic. Or silicon molds might first be built then coated
with the protective ceramic.
WAY DOWN Another problem is that lithography, which builds in layers, can
One of the most radical proposals for powering MAVs is to use gas only make planar or extruded parts. A turbine blade, for example,
turbines the size of shirt buttons 3-mm long with a 12-mm diame- cant be thinner at the root or make a twist. Researchers will have to
ter. The engines would be microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) live with this constraint unless new fabrication techniques can be de-
fabricated with the same techniques used to build computer chips. veloped. High-speed bearings with clearances in the submicron range
They would work like conventional jet engines, complete with min- will also have to be developed.
iature compressors, turbines, and combustion chambers. With the ad- M.I.T.s project focuses on the engine and will need further devel-
dition of a MEMS generator, each engine could provide about 16 W opment of fuel-control systems, electronic controls for the generator,
of electricity. (If thrust is the goal, the microengines can be designed an inlet air filter, and a fuel tank to be of practical use in an MAV. But
to put out approximately 0.125 N or 3 gm of thrust.) figures for the baseline engine (see Tech Specs) could later be im-
A research team headed by Alan Epstein at M.I.T.s Gas Turbine proved by adding heat recuperators and other improvements. Calcu-
Laboratory has already constructed a 4-mm turbine wheel in their lations show such an engine might have a 100-W output, fuel con-
quest for a MEMS turbine. Although there are some problems work- sumption in 2.8-gm/Whr range, and have a thrust-to-weight ratio of
ing at this scale, there are also some advantages. One major plus is 100:1. (The high thrust-to-weight ratio is the result of the cube-square
that as size shrinks, the likelihood a component has a material flaw law. As size diminishes in a jet engine, airflow, and thus the power,
decreases and they are proportionally stronger. This is helpful since decreases with the intake area, the square of the linear size. Mean-
the tiny turbines must spin at 2.4 million rpm, twice as fast as con- while, weight decreases with the volume, the cube of linear size. So
ventional turbines, to generate enough power. Stronger components with all else being the same, as the size of a jet engine goes down, the
are less likely to fracture under this stress. power-to-weight ratio increases.)
Reducing the size also shortens the startup and shutdown times to
few hundred microseconds. This will let designers use it in a pulsed
mode either all on, where it is most effi- Baseline parameters
cient, or all off. Pulsed operation also elim- ARRANGEMENT Single spool turbojet
inates the need to regulate fuel flow; if the SIZE 12 mm OD 3 3 mm long
engine is running, fuel always flows at
100%. PRESSURE RATIO 4:1
Most problems associated with the mi- AIRFLOW 0.15 gm/sec
cro turbines revolve around the manufac- COMBUSTOR TEMPERATURE 1,600K
turing process used, lithography. While it ROTOR SPEED 2.4 million rpm
does produce extremely accurate parts and
can be used for mass production, it is cur- OUTPUT 16 W of electrical power or
rently best suited to silicon. Unfortunately, 13 gm (0.125 N) of thrust
silicon cant withstand the high tempera- WEIGHT 1 gm
tures (1,300 to 1,700K) the turbines are Researchers at MITs Gas Turbine Lab built
FUEL Hydrogen
expected to create. One possible solution to this turbine wheel with a 4-mm diameter out
this problem is to develop lithography FUEL CONSUMPTION 7 gm/hr
of silicon as part of their project to build a
techniques for silicon carbide, a high-tem-
turbojet engine the size of a shirt button.

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produce its engine: the


ability to make micro-
casting patterns in wax
for rotating and static
structures; wire EDM of
flow passages; and laser Engineers at
welding and forming MITs Lincoln
sheet-metal parts, includ-
ing combustors made of
Labs are
Inconel sheet metal no exploring low
more than 0.005-in. Reynolds
thick. They also had to number
come up with an electric aerodynamics at
fuel pump roughly 1 cm3 part of its MAV
insize. project. Its
When completed, the prototype MAV,
M-Dot turbojet will be- shown upside
come the basis for a fam- down, carries a
ily of engines. It will be small camera in
made up of a turbofan for
propulsion in low-speed
its nose.
flight, a lift fan for VTOL
MAVs, and a 1-kW tur-
boalternator for remote electrical require-

.
Reprinted with permission of MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, Mass
ments.

KEEPING IT IN THE AIR


While the power plant is vital, once an
MAV gets into the air, it must be capable of
controlled flight. (Most MAVs will use
some sort of handheld, rubberband or
spring-powered catapult for launching.)
Small aircraft like MAVs have extremely
small Reynolds numbers. (Reynolds num-
bers are a ratio of inertial forces to viscous
forces and are a function of size, speed, and
shape. For comparison, a flying C-5 has a
Reynolds number with an order of magni-
tude of 108, an F/A-18s is on the order of
107, and a light planes is 106. MAVs will
clock in at 20,000 to 50,000.)
There is little data on low-Reynolds num- out there, so you have to go fast. Our MAV flight control. To control yaw, Harvey might
ber aircraft and those working on MAVs will is designed with a high power-to-weight ra- make a 50 to 100-MHz trailing wire antenna
be uncovering it as they go. There are a few tio, making it fast and more suited to outdoor serve double duty as an antenna and as a kite
principles that are known. As the Reynolds missions, says Harvey. He points out that a tail to keep it stable. Since the crafts power
number decreases, drag and the lift-to-drag low-speed MAV with a top speed of plant is a gas engine, a lithium battery had to
ratio increases with MAV wings having only 20 knots wouldnt fair very well in a 25 knot be added to power the servos.
one-third to one-fourth the lift-to-drag of a headwind. AeroVironments Black Widow has two
conventional aircraft. So far, MAV designers are using con- control flaps for directional control, and
One solution is to have a very light plane ventional control schemes: moving surfaces theyre run by three micro motors from
with a large wing, and thus low loading. The that change the lift or attitude of the craft. RMB in Switzerland. (Each motor weighs
Black Widow, for example, is essentially a And though Darpa envisions a self-flying, only 0.33 gm and measures 3 mm in diame-
disc, making it, in effect, a flying wing. But self-navigating craft, designers are taking it ter.) They, like the Black Widows main
the large wing area makes it, as most MAVs one step at a time, making sure their design motor, are battery powered. In all, the flight
will be, vulnerable to winds, gusts, and even can fly before worrying about making them system weighs 2 gm and includes a flight
rain. IAIs solution is to fly fast, at 40 to more autonomous. computer, receiver and servos.
80 knots, to increase the Reynolds number. IAIs MAV, which has yet to fly, uses Like most MAVs, both IAI and Aero-
Our philosophy is that the aircraft must ruddervators, a combined elevator and rud- Vironment use radio controllers with a hu-
penetrate the real world and there are winds der positioned by electric servomotors, for man in the loop to pilot their planes. But

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M-Dot Inc.s turbojet puts out 1.43 lb of Student-built MAVs like these
thrust and weighs 78 gm. One of the chal- competed last year at the
lenges in building it was maintaining the University of Floridas first
compressor, turbine, and combustor efficien- MAV Flyoff where they had to
cies with low flow rates and small air pas- fly 600 yd, peer inside a
sageways. box, then fly back to the
launch site with information
on what was inside the box.
Entries this year have to be
smaller, less expensive, and
there are major differences between the two will be given a more difficult
schemes. AeroVironments plane is radio task to perform.
controlled, with the ground-based pilot con-
trolling throttle, rudders and elevators. It is
relatively low speed (30 to 40 knots) and
might be best-suited for indoor missions.
And Keenon and his team are loading it with tures where RF signals cant penetrate. The for propulsion, either turbojets or internal
equipment that could provide more auton- machine vision might also be modified into combustion, and a relatively high percent-
omy than other MAVS. He and his team a collision-avoidance system. age of the energy will be lost as heat, espe-
have already developed and flown a 1-gm cially given the high surface-to-volume ratio
gyroscope that stabilizes the craft in flight. GETTING IT TO FIT of microengines. Engineers want to inte-
The next-generation Black Widow, accord- Another overall challenge in designing grate the thin-film generator into the walls
ing to Keenon, will feature a GPS receiver, MAVs is in cramming all the necessary of the engine, possibly building the engine
inertial stabilization and altitude pressure gear into a small space. Its forcing design- casing out of the thermoelectric device.
sensors, magnetic compass, airspeed sensor, ers to come up with some innovative solu- A handful of MAVs are flying, and sev-
and microwave command receiver and tions. IAI, for example, is using the flight eral more should be test flown by the end of
transmitter. control servos as wing spars. next year. There are some formidable chal-
IAIs plane transmits video only and is lim- Other space-saving techniques being dis- lenges to be met before they are ready for
ited to a 3-km range. This could be increased cussed are the etching of circuits on the walls the battlefield. For one thing, they need to be
by switching to spike discharge video, send- of structures rather than on separate circuit mass produced at a low cost and designed
ing an updated image every 10 sec, to boost boards, using any hollow spaces as fuel tanks, for use by soldiers and marines with little to
range and conserve electricity. The MAV and using steered antennas to cut down on the no flying experience. Its more likely that
transmits on a standard radio-control fre- size of transmitters and required power. some MAVs will be adapted to commercial
quency, making the onboard transmitter small Power density is critical, and engineers are use before they see military action.
enough to be carried, and receives servocon- looking for ways to wring the most out of
trol data at about 900 MHz, which makes the what they have. One company, Technology
receiving antenna small as well. in Blacksburg Inc., Blacksburg, Va., is devel- WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK.
IAI put the flight-control processing in oping a lightweight thermoelectric generator Did you find this article interesting?
the ground station. It converts operator stick designed to get every last erg out of waste Circle 751
inputs to ruddervator signals. It also uses a heat. It is a semiconductor-based device that Do you want more information
form of machine vision, recognizing verti- converts heat directly into electricity. The fin- on this topic? Circle 752
cal and horizontal edges in incoming video, ished product should be a microthin film Comment via e-mail to
translating them into building walls or hori- (0.05 in. thick) with a 5% conversion effi- mdeditor@penton.com
zons. Then, updated at 15 Hz, the ground ciency, which could rise to as high as 20% What related topics would you like to see
station can automatically fly the MAV be- with quantum well technologies. covered? What additional information
tween buildings or through a tunnel. This The development hinges on the fact that on this topic would you find useful?
would let it fly through buildings or struc- MAVs might use some form of heat engine

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