Mechanical Engineer, Design Enthusiast, People Person
SHRIMP
Short-Range Independent Microrobotic Platforms (SHRIMP)
Propeller with Texturing
When DARPA funded Project SHRIMP at the Penn Modular Robotics Lab...
The Modular Robotics Lab set out to design, fabricate, and test microrobotic drones for the application of search and rescue efforts while minimizing threats to human teams. We are developing the most advanced and smallest-scale microflyers in mm- to cm-scale dimensions to this date that are tested and benchmarked upon a series of Olympic-inspired events such as vertical ascent and angled tunnel turbulence flight.
As Propeller Design and Testing Lead...
I took ownership of the design of the propeller for the dynamics and control of an autonomous single-rotor drone. Using SolidWorks and OnShape, I iterated upon existing propeller designs in current robotics literature by benchmarking on a set of aerodynamics criteria. I was interested in quantifying the effects of propeller wing aspect ratio, camber, twist, wing bump, texture, wing slot, and angle of attack.
With each iterative design, I used 3D Resin Printing technology to fabricate each design across the range of angles of attack (0Ëš to 45Ëš).
Propeller with Wing Bump V1
3D Resin Printing
In order to test and iterate upon each design...
I partnered with a graduate researcher to create consistent and accurate Arduino electronics hardware and software to measure thrust, torque, and frequency at varying voltage inputs. We used load cells to measure thrust and torque in units of mass. We used a motor driver to control the rpm of the propeller in question and measured the frequency of rotation with Infrared emitter and receiver diodes. To ensure the precision of the frequency measurements, we used an oscilloscope.
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After gathering the thrust, torque, and frequency data, I was able to plot relationships of coefficients of drag and lift against angles of attack and optimize for the propeller designs that generate the maximal lift coefficient and minimal drag coefficient for maximum efficiency. I generated a 15% improvement in the efficiency of the propeller design as measured by lift coefficient/drag coefficient.
