Micro air vehicle: Configuration, analysis, fabrication, and test

This paper presents the development of two electrically powered micro air vehicle (MAV) prototypes with wingspans of 380 and 360 mm, respectively. A miniature flight control system is constructed using small and light components. A vision system consisting of a micro radio frequency (RF) transmitter and a miniature vision-receiving antenna with a low-noise amplifier is designed, which exhibits advantages over commercial ones. The aerodynamics of several airfoil sections at low chord Reynolds numbers are theoretically analyzed, for the layout of on-board components and the airfoil design. A small-sized propulsion/power testing setup is developed to measure and analyze the static performance of the motor/propeller/battery combination used for MAV prototype. The materials and methods used to build MAV prototypes are also presented. Two MAV prototypes, TH380 and TH360, have been successfully tested in the flight, where TH360 MAV with a payload of a home-made micro vision system can acquire the images of objects and transmit them back to the ground station.