Team NDA

In Autonomous Aerial Vehicle Challenge 2017

Yoshihiro Takita, Masashi Kashitani, Ahmad Fauzi Nurputranto,
Satoshi Nakajo, Nguyen Thai Duoung and Yuuki Mukae
National Defense Academy of Japan
1-10-20 Hashirimizu, Yokosuka, Kanagawa 239-8686, Japan
E-mail: takita@nda.ac.jp

Abstract: This paper describes a detail of Unmanned In order to complete the challenge, our team are
Aerial Vehicle builds by National Defense Academy of developing VTAL UAV combined a tailless wing with
Japan team for Autonomous Aerial Vehicle Challenge tilt-quadrotor. Quadrotor with tilt-mechanism is used for
2017. In 2011, Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant power hovering and level flight. The air and ground control
lost the cooling system and melted down. Droves are system is constructed with the pixhawk and the mission-
useful to observe this area. Our team is focusing on planner. It should be revise the program to fit with
VTOL UAV and developing a equipment for this VTOL system.
completion. In order to complete the mission of the In the part 2, 3, 4, and 5 we are going to describe the
challenge radio connection is important to establish detail of our UAV and the finally part we are going to
during flight. For this reason one VTOL UAV is doing conclude this paper.
searching and rescue, and the other is holding over the
ground station to keep radio connection during the 2. Drone Design
mission in AAVC2017. During the short of time we are developing a drone
with different part of framework that already
Keywords: Autonomous, VTOL, Tailless wing, Mission commercialized and build it into a ready to fly VTOL
planner, Pixhawk UAV. A main tailless wing of VTOL is not ready to fight
with quadcopter. Outline of VTOL UAV constructed
with a tailless wing and quadrotor is shown in Fig. 1.
1. Introduction
NDA Japan president aims to make the NDA become
the worlds number one academy is including the
capability of cadets to do research and solve problems in
near environment. Especially for cadets whose study in
the school of engineering, we are faced with fast
developed technology and challenged to do a quick
adaptation to new technologies.
That technology includes UAVs technology. In
Robotics laboratory belong with department of
Computer Science at NDA Japan, UAV development
Fig. 1 Outline of VTOL UAV
research has been started for years. Trirotors, quadrotors,
plane UAV, Tailless UAV and some types of UAV have
been researched. And this year, for AAVC 2017 we are 2.1. Tailles wing
developing a quad rotor UAV with GAUI base body
The expanded polypropylene (EPP) is used to built a
frame, pixhawk and mission planner to accomplish
tailless wing part. EPP is easy to cut, inexpensive, elastic
AAVC 2017 challenge to deliver a payload to target
and excellent in shock absorption. The airfoil has
locations.
selected M6 with a small moment coefficient.
AAVC 2017 theme is Search & Rescue and all
participant must develop UAV that able to do search and 2.2. Quadcopter
rescue task. The task is to deliver two payloads with 0.5
For the body of our UAV, we are using the GAUI 500x
kg each total of 1 kg that simulates the survival kits. The
Foldable Quadcopter body frame kits except for the body
two target locations are located between seven targets
cover, we are not using it due to our modification is need
and the participants have to deliver it at the exact target.
some space.
The mission is having a total distance of 3 km so the
UAV also must have the capability to fly over a long
distance.

1
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2.3. Motors
We are using GAUI 960KV Brushless Motor for our
Drone with specifications below:
Stator Diameter : 22.0 mm (0.87 in)
Stator Thickness : 12.0 mm (0.47 in)
Magnetic pole : 14
Motor Wind : 22 Turn Delta
Motor Wire : 4-Strand 0.21mm
Motor KV : 960 RPM / Volt
No-Load Current (Io/10V) : 0.51 Amps
Motor Resistance (Rm) : 0.139 Ohms
Max Continuous Current : 19 Amps
Max Continuous Power : 200Watts
Weight : 58.0 Grams (2.05 oz)
Outside Diameter : 27.9 mm (1.13 in)
Shaft Diameter : 2.98 mm (0.12 in)
Body Length : 30.0 mm (1.18 in)
Overall Shaft Length : 48 mm (1.89 in)
Max Lipo Cell : 4s
Motor Timing : 55deg
Drive Frequency : 8kHz
2.4. Propellers
The payload of GAUI 500X is almost 2 kg with 10-
inch propellers which are enough carrying capability for
AAVC.
2.5. Tilt-mechanism
A tilt-mechanism is enabling hovering and horizontal
flight. While the hovering motor thrust is vertical, and
during horizontal flight motor thrust has to parallel to
fighting direction. Each side of motor angle is controlled
by a servo motor. Two Servo motors work synchro-
nously.
3. Flight Control System
Fig. 2 Pixhawk flight control module
For UAV, flight control system is a very crucial
component. To achieve a UAV with capability to fly
autonomously, this flight control system is needed. In
this time, we are choosing Pixhawk flight control system
for our UAV shown in Fig. 2.
Pixhawk is a high-performance autopilot-on-module
developed by collaboration of 3D Robotics and
ArduPilot Group. This module has 168 MHz Cortex
2
M4F CPU, 3D Acceleration sensor, gyro sensor,
magnitude sensor, and barometer sensor. This module
also have microSD slot, 5 UARTs, CAN, 12C, SPI,
ADC, etc.on .
We connect this pixhawk with motors, telemetry,
buzzer, power, GPS, receiver, elevon servos and tilt-
servos. And for the radio we are using Futaba T14SG
and Futaba R7008 SB for the receiver.
.
4. Telemetry and Video Downlink
To connect the UAV with ground control program, we
use 3DR Radio set telemetry and for the live video we
are using AMIMON CONNEX ProSight HD kit video
downlink system shown in Fig. 3. The HD video down-
link can support 300m 1000m distance.
Fig. 3 AMIMON CONNEX ProSight HD kit
5. Mission Planner
This time, we are using Mission Planner which is
created by Michael Oborne to plan our Mission. This
Program is supporting pixhawk autopilot and it is come
with simulation feature to test a flight before a real
flight.
Mission Planner has other features to set the parameter
of our UAV and we can control the UAV without Radio
controller and just use our mouse click to make our UAV
fly. We also can make a log from a flight, so we can see
how the flight was and if there are some troubles within
the flight, we can check it easily.
With this program, we set some rally point so if the
GPS system is down, the UAV will land at the nearest
rally point, but if only the radio is down, the UAV will
continue the mission with Auto Mode. If the UAV is
losing its power, it will land at the nearest rally point.
6. Conclusion
In AAVC 2017, our team using an already built up
frame of a quadcopter and strengthened it with Pixhawk
and add some features like video support and gripping
support. Remaining works for VTOL UAV are that
building up the tailless wing base fixed wing, tilt-
mechanism and flight control program using tilt-
mechanism. For the ground control, we are using
Mission planner to do our mission and we have set for
fail safe system. Our UAV can load about 2 kg of
payload and able to fly about 15 minutes.
7. Referencess
[1] GAUI 500x Parts shop,
http://dronesvision.net/multicopters/gaui-500x-
quadcopter/
[2] Mission Planner Home, http://ardupilot.org/planner/
[3] Sekido Shop, AMIMON CONNEX ProSight,
https://www.sekido-rc.com/?pid=104732377
[4] Pixhawk Autopilot,
https://pixhawk.org/modules/pixhawk
[5] The Drone Mission,
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/0
4/inside-the-drone-missions-to-fukushima/237981/