Abstract
Unmanned helicopters are trending platforms for
quick post-disaster aerial surveying because of their improved
safety, reduced operational costs and ability to access hazardous
areas. Design enhancements in the existing aerial platforms to
accommodate surveying functionality is a commonly practiced
approach instead of developing surveying platforms from scratch.
Skid elevation to accommodate additional equipment is one of the
design enhancements done under this approach. This paper
proposes a new hollow structure elevated skid design to address
the problem of providing additional space to accommodate
disaster surveying equipment (i.e., vision system, airdrop
mechanism, extra fuel tank) under the medium-size helicopter.
SolidWorks and ANSYS virtual platforms are used for the
modelling and simulations of the proposed elevated skid
structure, respectively. Static structural Finite Element Analysis
(FEA) and Explicit Dynamic Analysis (EDA) are performed for
aluminium and fibreglass materials and concluded that proposed
structure is within the elastic limit of materials with safety factors
within the aerospace range (1.2-1.5). Results for fibreglass
material are reported slightly better than aluminium material.
Comparative analysis is performed with existing skids and
proposed design is capable of achieving desired payload capacity
(i.e., 7kg) and space requirements (i.e., 195mm) by almost 160g
reduced weight when compared with reference skid. Developed
elevated skid will provide additional space for the attachment of
equipment related to disaster relief, rescue and surveying.
Umair Iqbal, Syed Irtiza Ali Shah. (2020) A Hollow Structure Elevated Skid Design for Medium Size Unmanned Disaster Surveying Helicopter, Journal of Space Technology , Volume 10, Issue 1.
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