I-Corps: Reconfigurable, modular, electric vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platform

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种模块化的无人机(UAV)系统，该系统能够进行重新配置，以适应不同有效载荷运输任务和目标的要求。具有这些能力的车辆有可能取代各种专门为特派团建造的车辆，从而降低成本，这要归功于不那么复杂的操作程序、减少车辆开发和升级周期以及规模经济。更广泛地说，拟议的项目将目前由人类工人处理的自主解决方案的开发扩展到以更高的效率减少人类的危险暴露。模块化飞行器的一个可能应用是提升各种类型的有效载荷，以便在高空执行遥感或物体操纵，从而降低工人坠落的风险，根据致命职业伤害普查，坠落是建筑中致命事故的主要原因。这个i-Corps项目基于模块化、可重构无人机(UAV)的开发。拟议的系统由一组自给自足的兼容旋翼飞行器模块组成，这些模块可以以各种配置组装起来，以完成不同的任务。为开发该系统进行的研究涉及三个领域：开发模块化车辆的空气动力学和结构模型，为任意数量的车辆和新的配置设计控制策略，以及执行有效的计算机程序来确定给定任务的最优车辆配置。已经研究了不同的模块形状，结果表明，受柏拉图固体启发的三维、高度对称的形状有可能制造出多功能和结构高效的车辆。此外，已经开发了几种有效控制超大型配置的方法，目的是优化不同的标准，如敏捷性或功耗。这些方法可以与模块化车辆的结构特性结合使用，以创建能够在给定一些任务限制的情况下生成具有改进的动态和结构特性的配置的计算机程序。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a modular unmanned air vehicle (UAV) system capable of being reconfigured to adapt to the requirements of diverse payload transportation missions and objectives. Vehicles with these capabilities have the potential to supplant various purpose-built, mission-specific vehicles for a reduced cost thanks to less complex operating procedures, reduced vehicle development and upgrade cycles, and economies of scale. More broadly, the proposed project extends the development of autonomous solutions currently tackled via human workers to the reduction of hazard exposure for humans with increased efficiency. A possible application of modular aerial vehicles is to lift various types of payloads to perform remote sensing or object manipulation at height, thus reducing the risk of falling for workers, which is the primary cause of fatal accidents in construction according to the census of fatal occupational injuries.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a modular, reconfigurable unmanned air vehicle (UAV). The proposed system consists of a collection of self-contained compatible rotorcraft modules that may be assembled in various configurations to fulfill diverse tasks. The research conducted for the development of this system involves three areas: the development of aerodynamic and structural models for modular vehicles, the design of control strategies for an arbitrary number of vehicles and novel configurations, and the implementation of efficient computer programs for the determination of optimal vehicle configurations given a task. Different module shapes have been studied and it was shown that three-dimensional, highly symmetric shapes inspired by the Platonic solids have the potential to yield versatile and structurally efficient vehicles. In addition, several methods for the efficient control of very large configurations have been developed with the goal of optimizing different criteria such as agility or power consumption. Such methods may be used in conjunction with the structural properties of modular vehicles to create computer programs capable of generating configurations with improved dynamic and structural properties given some task constraints.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.