2024-06-05 Big Fixed Wing Architecture Sync
Pre-Meeting Notes
Questions
Alignment on Fixed Wing 2025
Renamed pages in 2024-2025 Program Outline to align with ideas
Will this plane be a similar design as our comp drone? Should we decide on a rough comp drone design before starting this project?
will not be icarus sized fuselage
Design around sensors and electronics, create a full list of every electronic part and their mounting requirements first.
Optimize for space, the fuselage has to be small and aerodynamic.
Custom battery? Should we look into this for this platform?
For reference hacked together diagram for future Pegasus can be found in Big Quad 2025
Reference ideas for CAN system block diagram is shown in ESC CAN Adapter
Engineering Decisions
Wingspan
Weight
Number of props
Prop/motor locations
Motor type
Tail type (V-tail, elevator/rudder, inverted v-tail)
Landing gear (wheels?)
Manufacturing methods
Simulations
In-Meeting Notes
“small-ish fixed wing” is main fixed wing for mech prototyping
“big” and “small” fixed wing docs in 2024-2025 Program Outline were merged together
Don’t mix EFS and mech testing
Flight characteristics analysis
Modular design
One frame for mech, one for EFS. Validate EFS plane with Pixhawk first.
Compare different fuselages/payloads in sim and in real life
Make list of sensors and mounting requirements
Device Manuals<- for each device requirements should go as subpages to this
Start with a plane motor that we have
AT4130
Iterative design process needed to specify motors, props and power system?
Research motor placement and number of motors, assign this task (smile)
Use non-folding props at the beginning
5kg -Daniel
for reference, each https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-heavy-duty-6200mah-6s-60c-lipo-battery-pack-w-xt90.html?___store=en_us is ~900g for comparison with Pegasus tho we could absolutely pick diff batteries … Can use the bunch we have
Daniel would prefer 6S if we can make it solve, but i guess out of scope here, will need to do motor selection first
makes all electronics cheaper as long as the wire weight is tolerable
keeps battery at around 1kg if we wanna use our existing packs
Use the skygauge packs
4 foot wingspan
Do more research on tail type, dependent on motor location
Interchangable tail types for testing
Wheels for takeoff/landing
Ribs for wings with plastic sheet cover
Thermoforming wings?
Aluminum ribs on waterjet
Foam fuselage for EFS version, potentially switch for future revisions
electronics stack
maybe 5.8ghz analog video (buy more analog transmitters)
Don’t un LTE because of weight and cost (use RFD900 or ELRS)
hopefully no RFD
1x gps → place away from motor
if we do in the wings do 2x
will be UART
RM3100 external mag?
would be redunant to GPS
CAN for megnetometer
single connector to wings long term, early on maybe not
no opflow
downward facing rangefinder
pitot tube for airspeed https://rotorgeeks.com/matek-digital-airspeed-sensor-aspd-dlvr
could go in wing or nose
Action Items
Go through what motors we have in the bay as options for this vehicle, prop research -Smile
Select puller, pusher, center, or side prop options as initial configuration -Mech
Make a list of the components we want to run - Nathan
Block diagram for electronics first draft - Daniel