Design, Control and Analysis of Low Cost Archetype Dual Rotor Helicopter for Educational Institution

This paper presents the design and development of low cost archetype dual rotor helicopter (LCADRH) for academic research in an educational institution. The LCADRH is installed with optical pitch encoder and yaw encoder which measure elevation and side to side motion of helicopter. The objective of the project is to design and integrate the helicopter with data acquisition board and sensors to provide hardware features, software support capability for its rapid real time measurement and control. The low cost designed LCADRH facilitates the academic research for students in the institution and is able to provide hands on training to understand the concept of nonlinearity, system modelled and unmodelled dynamics and uncertainty, modelling, simulation and control by doing practical experiments. The mathematical model of the LCADRH is derived using grey box modelling method. The control of LCADRH is challenging due to its nonlinearity and effect of strong coupling between aerodynamic forces and torques generated by the both pitch and yaw actuators. In closed loop position control of LCADRH, pitch and yaw axis motion is regulated using linear quadratic controller (LQR). Encouraging results are obtained both in simulation and hardware.

Investigation of the dynamic characteristics of a dual rotor system and its start-up simulation based on finite element method

Recently,the finite element method(FEM) has been commonly applied in the engineering analysis of rotor dynamics.Gyroscopic moments,rotary inertia,transverse shear deformation and gravity can be included in computational models of rotor-bearing systems.In this paper,a finite element model and its solution method are presented for the calculation of the dynamics of dual rotor systems.A typical structure with two rotor shafts is discussed and the procedure for obtaining the coupling motion equations of the subsystems is illustrated.A computer program is developed to solve critical speeds and to simulate the transient motion.The influence of gyroscopic moments on co-rotation and counter-rotation is analyzed,and the effect of the speed ratio on critical speed is studied.The dynamic characteristics under different conditions of increasing speed during start-up are demonstrated by comparison with transient nodal displacements.The presented model provides a complete foundation for further investigation of the dynamics of dual rotor systems.

Design and analysis of a dual-stator brushless doubly-fed induction machine with a staggered dual-cage rotor

In this paper,a new dual-stator brushless doubly-fed induction machine with a staggered dual cage rotor is proposed,with emphasis on the general interconnection rule of the conductor bars for the staggered dual cage rotor.Since the squirrel cage rotor offers the merits of robustness,reliable structure,high slot filling factor,and low rotor resistance comparing to the wound rotor,it is introduced to the dual-stator brushless doubly-fed induction machine to solve the problems of high copper loss and unreliable rotor structure for the dual-stator brushless doubly-fed induction machine with a wound rotor.The originality of this article is to investigate the interconnection rule of conductor bars between the inner and outer cages.The constraint condition that is supposed to be satisfied is deduced by using the rotating magneto-motive force theory,based on which diverse slot/pole combinations are investigated.The performance comparison between the existing and proposed machines is conducted.Finally,a prototype is designed and fabricated.The experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed topology.