TY - GEN
T1 - A Lightweight, Compliant, Contact-Resistance-Based Airflow Sensor for Quadcopter Ground Effect Sensing
AU - Gollob, Samue Dutra
AU - Manian, Yash
AU - St Pierre, Ryan
AU - Chen, Abraham Simpson
AU - Bergbreiter, Sarah
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 IEEE.
PY - 2018/9/10
Y1 - 2018/9/10
N2 - Sensors to measure quadcopter ground effect are often relatively large, heavy, and require significant power, which restricts their applicability when it comes to small quadcopters and other aircraft that require lightweight and non-obstructive solutions. This paper presents the design of an elastomeric contact-resistance-based airflow sensor to measure ground effect with a mass of approximately 0.04 g and a power draw of 42 μW when in operation. It uses a rigid flap attached to the top of a flexible conductive pillar (CNT/PDMS), which deflects with varying winds speeds. A simple model is presented to describe expected trends between air flow speeds and sensor deflection and is compared with a wind tunnel characterization of the sensor for varying airflows. The sensor is characterized in a wind tunnel to identify a minimum airflow necessary for sensor functionality. Finally, sensors are attached to a Crazyflie 2.0 (Bitcraze) quadcopter and tested for performance in detecting ground effect, where there is a clear trend between sensor output and the intensity of the turbulent flow, related to proximity to ground and thrust level.
AB - Sensors to measure quadcopter ground effect are often relatively large, heavy, and require significant power, which restricts their applicability when it comes to small quadcopters and other aircraft that require lightweight and non-obstructive solutions. This paper presents the design of an elastomeric contact-resistance-based airflow sensor to measure ground effect with a mass of approximately 0.04 g and a power draw of 42 μW when in operation. It uses a rigid flap attached to the top of a flexible conductive pillar (CNT/PDMS), which deflects with varying winds speeds. A simple model is presented to describe expected trends between air flow speeds and sensor deflection and is compared with a wind tunnel characterization of the sensor for varying airflows. The sensor is characterized in a wind tunnel to identify a minimum airflow necessary for sensor functionality. Finally, sensors are attached to a Crazyflie 2.0 (Bitcraze) quadcopter and tested for performance in detecting ground effect, where there is a clear trend between sensor output and the intensity of the turbulent flow, related to proximity to ground and thrust level.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85062590434
U2 - 10.1109/ICRA.2018.8461229
DO - 10.1109/ICRA.2018.8461229
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85062590434
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
SP - 7826
EP - 7831
BT - 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2018
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2018
Y2 - 21 May 2018 through 25 May 2018
ER -