Design, modelling and measurement of a hybrid powerplant for unmanned aerial systems

Abstract

Hybrid powerplants combining internal combustion engines and electric motor prime movers have been extensively developed for land- and marine-based transport systems. The use of such powerplants in airborne applications has been historically impractical due to energy and power density constraints. Improvements in battery and electric motor technology make aircraft hybrid powerplants feasible. This paper presents a technique for determining the feasibility and mechanical effectiveness of powerplant hybridisation. In this work, a prototype aircraft hybrid powerplant was designed, constructed and tested. It is shown that an additional 35% power can be supplied from the hybrid system with an overall weight penalty of 5%, for a given unmanned aerial system. A flight dynamic model was developed using the AeroSim Blockset in MATLAB Simulink. The results have shown that climb rates can be improved by 56% and endurance increased by 13% when using the hybrid powerplant concept.

Keywords:

• Aircraft
• Hybrid
• Propulsion
• Performance
• simulation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

R Glassock

Richard Glassock holds a Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Diploma in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, and is currently completing a Master’s Thesis in Mechanical Engineering. For the past three years, Richard has been involved in assisting Undergraduate Avionics UAV projects at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), helping many students with aircraft development and flight testing activities.

J Y Hung

Jane Hung completed a Bachelor of Engineering (Aerospace Avionics) with Honours and a Bachelor of Applied Science (Mathematics) in 2003 at QUT. Jane is currently working towards a PhD in the field of multi-objective mission planning for unmanned aerial systems (UAS) utilising hybrid-propulsion systems.

L F Gonzalez

Dr Luis Gonzalez (BE (Mech), PhD (Aerospace) , MIEAust, CPEng) is a lecturer at the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA) and QUT. He currently lectures Introduction to Avionics, Advanced Systems Design, Aircraft Systems and Flight Control, and Modern Flight Control. He has three years experience as a Mechanical and Project Engineer in CFD/FEA design, analysis and installation. He has developed and managed several electromechanical projects for metallurgic, aeronautical and mechanical design companies. Luis has published 16 refereed conference papers and four journal papers on the topic of unmanned aerial systems.

R A Walker

Prof Rodney Walker is the Director of the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA). He has over 15 years experience in aerospace electrical systems, particularly in aviation GNSS. He was responsible for delivery of the space GNSS payload on FedSat – Australia’s first satellite in over 30 years. He has been exploring techniques to allow UAVs to find a place in the civil commercial marketplace since 1999. Rodney is a private pilot with aerobatic endorsement.