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Analysis of the motor failure indicates that the failure was caused was due to overheating of the motor from running at high power for a prolonged period of time. The flight-line team thereafter removed the wings to reduce weight and tried running a hover-test again to test the motor again. Unfortunately, the same problem occurred and the rear-right motor gave way. Through more investigation and research into motor specifications, it was concluded that the desired flight profile, as a fixed wing aircraft with vertical takeoff capability, was not achievable using the current motors in the given weather conditions, as these motors were intended to run at maximum current for three minutes at a time but we experienced failures far faster than the rated operating time. The team concluded it would be unsafe to transition without further validation of the aircraft performance.
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Over the course of Task 1 and Task 2, various faults were identified and noted for subsequent years' competitions. The most significant lesson learned from the competition tasks was to keep the drone design simple, test frequently, and to test often, in various test during different weather conditions. The original design of the aircraft was a VTOL fixed-wing hybrid which was optimized for controlled vertical landing on landing pads , as well as long-distance flying between waypoints. However, the drone’s weight of the drone was too high, causing the motors to have to work harder and overheat, preventing the drone from flying longer than three minutes. All of the testing for was greater than anticipated, and the motors were not able to generate enough thrust for sufficent landing and takeoff times. All testing of the aircraft was performed in the winter with very cold temperatures, so the overheating issues were never encountered by the team. Therefore a valuable lesson learned was to take into account the ambient temperature of the drone when conducting flight tests.
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During the Task 2 flight window, radios were used as a method of communication between the flight line and the ground control tent. The radios were unclear and the team resorted to using cellphones to communicate. More testing should have been done on the radios beforehand. The organizational flaw during the Task 2 is that the flight line communications could have been made more clear by using predefined roles and tasks.
Final Comments
Ultimately, Project Icarus attempted both Task 1 and Task 2 of the UAS 2023 competition as detailed in the CONOPS. Icarus went through multiple rapid prototype and development phases throughout the competition, but ultimately all configurations were not able to complete the tasks as expected. Various reasons were detailed and analyzed as to why the goals were not achieved, and takeaways were noted for subsequent competitions. WARG has a lot of points to take back and work on for the drone during next year’s competition season.
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