CULARIS
The Cularis is an electric motor glider made by Multiplex. I'm using this UAV to carry out model identification tests and controllers re-tuning for my master thesis.
The first step of the identification is the study of the aerodynamic polar (Cl-Cd) without the use of any typical flight-testing equipment like, as example, an AOA probe.
The second step is aimed to reconstruct the aircraft's dynamic behavior, exciting the system with doublets on all the control surfaces while recording the response feeding a grey-box model.
The entire polar was reconstructed performing glides at different airspeed while logging all the significant data to be later reduced to ISA standard atmosphere.
The main advantage of this technique is in the use of relatively simple hardware (commonly included onboard UAV...) to study the portion of flight envelope necessary to determine climb, cruise, and glide performance, where the aerodynamic behavior is mostly linear and the flight controller will operate under the majority of the flight.
Cularis UAV Automatic Take-off
Technical data
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Weight:
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Maximum take-off mass (MTOM): 2.5 kg
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Wing data
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Wingspan: 2.6 m
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Hardware:
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Battery:
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Li-Po 3S, 2000 mAh
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ESC: 60A
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