SAE AERO DESIGN PROJECT

PROPULSION & TELEMETRY

SYSTEMS
UNION COLLEGE FLIGHT CLUB
Ervin Meneses and Joseph Laub
Advisor John Spinelli,Ph.D
 SAE Aero Design Team
• Society of Automotive Engineers
• Team of five, two EE’s and three ME’s
• Regular and Advanced Class Competitions
 Regular Class Competition
Summary
• Design, build, and test an R/C aircraft
• Carry max pay loads within 200 ft runway
• Max combined L,W,H of 175 inches
• Electric Propulsion
• Power limiter (1000W)
• Scoring
• Bonus Points
• Penalties Include
• Power consumption >1000W
• Bad take off/landing
• Design modifications after submitting design Report
 OPTIMIZING POWER
CONSUMPTION OF SAE AERO
AIRCRAFT

Ervin Meneses
 Overview
• Design Requirements
• Project Goals
• Propulsion Systems
• Testing
• Future Work
 Design Requirements
• One single electric motor configuration
• Use of one COMMERCIAL Li-Po Battery
• Min. Req. of 3000mAh @ 25C
• Use of 2015 Power Limiter
• Install Red Arming Plug
 Project Goals
• Provide the team with an aggressive electric propulsion
system (EPS) that complies with SAE Aero Rules and
provides more that 11 lbf of thrust
• Design and implement a P.I controller algorithm that optimize
the power consumption of EPS(
2014 EPS
 Battery, Propeller, and Motor Selection
• The
 Battery Selection
6s 4000mAh 6S 3200mAh

• 1lb .6oz • 1lb 2oz

 3200mAh vs 4000 mAh Bateries
• Add a plot that they perform the same under the 4 minute
interval
Transmitted Signal
2015 EPS

PWM
Analo
g
Consta
Power
nt
What is a P.I Controller ?
P.I control Algorithm Block Diagram
P.I Control Results

But……
 Data Collection Tools
• Use of Thrust Test Bed
Propell Average Thrust
• Oscilloscope
er (lbf)
• Current Probe
17x12E 11.26
• BNC to alligator Clip connector
• Xplorer GLX Graphing Data Logger 18x8 12.57
• Dual Load Cell Amplifier 18x8E 12.97
18x10E 11.69
19x8 12.27
19x10 11.73
20x8E 12.11
20x10E 12.13
Test Bed
17x12E Prop
18x8 Prop
18x8E Prop
Engaging Limiter
Add Crash Picture
Future Work
• Finish P.I Control Algorithm
• Order and test other propellers with
different pitches
• Use Ecalc as a reference for future testing
• Find lighter motor for future use
Questions?
 TELEMETRY SYSTEMS
FOR THE SAE ADVANCED
COMPETITION AIRCRAFT

By Joseph Laub
Advisor: John Spinelli, Ph.D
Project Goals
• This year
• Improving aircraft prototypes
• Next year
• Competing in the Advanced Class
Advanced Class Competition
• The Mission:
• Drop a three pound humanitarian aid package onto a target from at
least 100 feet.
Telemetry System SAE Requirements
• Real-time altitude at ground station.
• Record altitude at time of drop.
• Accurate within one foot.
• Telemetry must have a first person view (FPV).
Telemetry System Primary Goals
• Record:
• Altitude
• Air Speed
• Ground Speed
• Location
• Time
• Transmit altitude to ground station.
• Calculate lead time to target at ground station.
Telemetry System Secondary Goals
• Overlay altitude and ground speed data on FPV monitor.
• Accelerometer data.
• Gyroscopic data.
• Take off/Landing time recorded.
Aircraft
• 2015 Union College Aero Team Prototype 1
“The Brain”
• The fuselage of the aircraft with telemetry package
Data Acquisition System

*Power not shown

Data Acquisition System
• Inter-intergrated circuit (I2C) protocol.
Data Acquisition System
• System block diagram.
Microcontroller
• Arduino Mini Pro (3.3 V)
• ~9x smaller.
• ~7x lighter
Sensors
• Altimeter
• Pressure
• Temperature
• Change in Altitude (from pressure)
• GPS
• UTC Time
• Location (latitude and longitude)
• Ground Speed
• Airspeed Sensor
• Air Speed
• Range Finder
• Distance from bottom of fuselage to ground.
Data
• Processed using MATLAB.
Air Speed Plot from file fakeFlight.txt
(miles/hour)

100
Air Speed

50

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Time (seconds)
Fuselage Range Finder

Fuselage Range Finder Plot from file fakeFlight.txt

400
(mm)

200

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Time (seconds)
Altitude Plot from file fakeFlight.txt
20
Altitude
(feet)

10

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Time (seconds)
Temperature Plot from file fakeFlight.txt
Temperature

65
(F)

64.5

64
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Time (seconds)
Future Work
• Connect GPS using I2C.
• Continue testing range of RF communication.
• Include accelerometer.
 Acknowledgments
• Professor John Spinelli
• Professor James Hedrick
• Professor Luke Dosiek
• Professor Bradford Bruno
• Gene Davison
• Stan Gorski
• Lisa Galeo
• Rodolfo Santana
• The 2014 Union College Aero Team
Questions?