Open AccessLightweight and maintainable rotary-wing UAV frame from configurable design to detailed design
Author(s) -
Huiqiang Guo,
Mingzhe Li,
Pengfei Sun,
Changfeng Zhao,
Wenjie Zuo,
Xiaoying Li
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
advances in mechanical engineering/advances in mechanical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.318
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1687-8140
pISSN - 1687-8132
DOI - 10.1177/16878140211034999
Subject(s) - frame (networking) , design for manufacturability , maintainability , computer science , design process , inertia , process (computing) , engineering design process , engineering , simulation , mechanical engineering , work in process , telecommunications , operations management , physics , software engineering , classical mechanics , operating system
Rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are widespread in both the military and civilian applications. However, there are still some problems for the UAV design such as the long design period, high manufacturing cost, and difficulty in maintenance. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel design method to obtain a lightweight and maintainable UAV frame from configurable design to detailed design. First, configurable design is implemented to determine the initial design domain of the UAV frame. Second, topology optimization method based on inertia relief theory is used to transform the initial geometric model into the UAV frame structure. Third, process design is considered to improve the manufacturability and maintainability of the UAV frame. Finally, dynamic drop test is used to validate the crashworthiness of the UAV frame. Therefore, a lightweight UAV frame structure composed of thin-walled parts can be obtained and the design period can be greatly reduced via the proposed method.