Experimental Analysis of a Fixed-Wing VTOL MAV in Ground Effect

More and more complex reconnaissance missions are now expected from miniaturized aerial robots such as Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs). In recent years, the need for aerial platforms capable of both hovering and fast forward flight has been expressed in order to accomplish target recognition in confined environments including outdoor and indoor flights. As a consequence, MAV systems may look fairly different depending on the mission planned: fixed-wing MAVs remains the preferred design for outdoor missions while rotary-wing or flapping-wing MAVs perform better for indoor missions. Therefore, over recent years, new MAV configurations have been investigated in order to carry out multi-tasking missions which include both indoor and outdoor flight phases with horizontal and vertical flight capabilities. Based on the success of the first multi-mission fixed wing coaxial-motor vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) MAV developed by ISAE and the University of Arizona in 2007, ISAE has studied a new tandem-motor VTOL MAV called MAVion since 2008. Although the MAVion concept has not yet demonstrated VTOL and low speed flight capacity, it had demonstrated high flight performance in an urban environment by winning first place in the IMAV09 competition in Florida. Hovering and VTOL capacity, an important key for this kind of multi-mission MAV, is the focus of this paper. Therefore, a dedicated experimental bench has been used to measure hover flight performances, both in terms of propulsion and aerodynamic efficiency. Ground effects have been analyzed in view of predicting the vehicle behavior in take-off and landing phases by using a high performance 5-component Micro-Sting Balance which is specially designed for MAV research.