Design, experimental investigation, and nonlinear flight dynamics with atmospheric disturbances of a fixed-wing micro air vehicle

In this paper, the design process of a fixed-wing Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) is presented. The design cycle begins with mission requirements, followed by collecting statistical data from available MAVs. Next, MAV's sizing and weight estimation are conducted based on mission requirements. Finally, the aspect ratio, taper ratio, and airfoil selection are performed. As the MAV has a low aspect ratio and low Reynolds number airflow, the aerodynamics is not fully understood. The propeller wash increases the complexity of the aerodynamic flow; therefore, the MAV is manufactured for wind tunnel testing. The absent of actual flight performance and flight dynamics of fixed-wing MAVs are the main driven factors for this research. The wind tunnel experimental data are used in the flight performance equations to evaluate the MAV's actual flight performance and compare it with the estimated values. As MAV is very sensitive to the external disturbances which make the prediction of its dynamics a hard task, a nonlinear flight simulation model is created for the MAV's dynamics prediction. This model uses the experimentally measured data to predict the MAV's dynamics and its stability against wind disturbances. The results in this paper indicate that using aerodynamics historical data will give a huge error in estimating MAV's flight performance. The measured data in this research can be used to eliminate this error. Also, the flight dynamics of fixed-wing MAVs cannot be assumed linear, and the technique used in this paper gives a very accurate flight dynamics estimation.