• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.53-61
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• 2021

This paper is a preliminary study for the development of a drone for inspection inside a boiler in a thermal power plant, which is a high-temperature environment, and validated whether the drone can fly normally through a high-temperature environment simulation using AirSim. In a high-temperature flight environment, the aerodynamic characteristics of the air density and viscosity are different from room temperature, and the flight performance of the drone is also changed accordingly. Therefore, in order to confirm the change of the aerodynamic characteristics of the propeller according to the temperature change, the propeller analysis and thrust test through JBLADE, and the operation characteristics prediction through the electric propulsion system performance prediction model were performed. In addition, the analysis and performance prediction results were applied to AirSim for simulation, and the aircraft redesigned through the analysis of the results. As a result of the redesign, it was confirmed that about 65% of the maximum power used before the redesign was reduced to 52% to obtain the necessary thrust when hovering in an environment of 80℃.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.499-508
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• 2016

This paper describes a study of performance prediction of an electric propulsion system for multirotor UAVs. The electric propulsion system consists of motors, propellers, batteries and speed controllers, and significantly affects performance characteristics of the platform. The performance of the electric propulsion system for multirotor UAVs was predicted using an analytical model derived from the characteristics of each component, operation experiments and statistical analyses. Ground performance tests and endurance flights were performed to verify the reliability of the proposed performance prediction method. A quadrotor platform was designed to demonstrate the parcel delivery service used in the endurance flight. From the result of verification tests, it was confirmed that the proposed method has a good agreement.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.63-70
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• 2005

Birds and insects flap their wings to fly in the air and they can change their wing motions to do steering and maneuvering. Therefore, we created various wing motions with the parameters which affected flapping motion and evaluated the aerodynamic characteristics about those cases in this study. As the wing rotational velocity was fast and the rotational timing was advanced, the measured aerodynamic forces showed drastic increase near the end of stroke. The mean lift coefficient was increased until angle of attack of $50^{\circ}$ and showed the maximum value of 1.0. The maximum mean lift to drag ratio took place at angle of attack of $20^{\circ}$. Flow fields were also visualized around the wing using particle image velocimetry (PIV). From the flow visualization, leading-edge vortex was not shed at mid-stroke until angle of attack of $50^{\circ}$. But it was begun to shed at angle of attack of $60^{\circ}$.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.154-159
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• 2014

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is widely used to aid the navigation of aerial vehicles. However, the GPS cannot be used indoors, so alternative navigation methods are needed to be developed for micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) flying in GPS-denied environments. In this paper, a real-time three-dimensional (3-D) indoor navigation system and closed-loop control of a quad-rotor aerial vehicle equipped with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and a low-cost light detection and ranging (LIDAR) is presented. In order to estimate the pose of the vehicle equipped with the two-dimensional LIDAR, an octree-based grid map and Monte-Carlo Localization (MCL) are adopted. The navigation results using the MCL are then evaluated by making a comparison with a motion capture system. Finally, the results are used for closed-loop control in order to validate its positioning accuracy during procedures for stable hovering and waypoint-following.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.512-521
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• 2002

The flap-lag-torsion coupled aeroelastic behavior of a hingeless rotor blade with composite flexures in hovering flight has been investigated by using the finite element method. The quasisteady strip theory with dynamic inflow effects is used to obtain the aerodynamic loads acting on the blade. The governing differential equations of motion undergoing moderately large displacements and rotations are derived using the Hamilton's principle. The flexures used in the present model are composed of two composite plates which are rigidly attached together. The lead-lag flexure is located inboard of the flap flexure. A mixed warping model that combines the St. Versant torsion and the Vlasov torsion is developed to describe the twist behavior of the composite flexure. Numerical simulations are carried out to correlate the present results with experimental test data and also to identify the effects of structural couplings of the composite flexures on the aeroelastic stability of the blade. The prediction results agree well with other experimental data. The effects of elastic couplings such as pitch-flap, pitch-lag, and flap-lag couplings on the stability behavior of the composite blades are also investigated.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.46-51
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• 2019

Rotor wake interaction must be considered to understand the quadrotor flight, and the rotor separation distance is an important parameter that affects the rotor wake interaction. In this study, the wake characteristics were investigated with varying the rotor separation distance. The velocity field in the rotor wake was measured using digital PIV for hovering mode at Re = 34,000, and the wake boundaries from the inner and outer rotor tips were quantitatively compared with varying the rotor separation distance. The symmetric rotor-tip vortex shedding about the rotor axis was found at a large rotor separation distance. However, the wake boundary became more asymmetric about the rotor axis with decreasing the rotor separation distance. At the minimum rotor separation distance, in particular, a faster vortex decay was observed due to a strong vortex interaction between adjacent rotors.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.338-344
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• 2010

This paper discusses the development of the control system of a mini quadrotor in Konkuk University for indoor applications. The attitude control system consists of a stability augmentation system, which acts as the inner loop control, and a modern control approach based on modeling will be implemented as the outer loop. The inner loop control was experimentally satisfied by a proportional-derivative controller; this was used to support the flight test in order to validate the modeling. This paper introduces the mathematical model for the simulation and design of the optimal control on the outer loop control. To perform the experimental tests, basic electronic hardware was developed using simple configurations; a microcontroller used as the embedded controller, a low-cost 100 Hz inertial sensors used for the inertial sensing, infra-red sensors were employed for horizontal ranging, an ultrasonic sensor was used for ground ranging and a high performance propeller system built on an quadrotor airframe was also employed. The results acquired from this compilation of hardware produced an automatic hovering ability of the system with ground control system support for the monitoring and fail-safe system.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.40-47
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• 2011

Tilt-rotor aircraft can be used in various fields because they have the capabilities of the vertical take-off and landing and the high-speed cruise flight. In the present study, the flow analysis of a tilt-rotor aircraft is conducted at various tilt angles. The lift and drag forces of the tilt-rotor aircraft are obtained and the wakes by the rotor-blade are visualized. The result shows that the rotor-blade affects the lift force in a hovering mode and the main wing has an influence on the lift force in a cruise mode. Additional thrust is required at the tilt angle of around 40 degree due to the least lift force. The drag force is dependent on the rotor-blade at overall tilt angles. The minus drag force appears between the tilt angles of 90 degree and 55 degree. Also, the drag force is dramatically increased at the other tilt angles. The wake by rotor-blade affects the flow around the fuselage of the tilt-rotor aircraft at the tilt angles of 75 degree and 60 degree.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.95-99
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• 1998

We introduce an autonomous flying system using a model-helicopter. A feature of the helicopter is that autonomous flight is realized on the low-cost compact model-helicopter. Our helicopter system is divided into two parts. One is on the helicopter, and the other is on the land. The helicopter is loaded with a vision sensor and an electronic compass including a tilt sensor. The control system on the land monitors the helicopter movement and controls. We firstly introduce the configuration of our helicopter system with a vision sensor and an electronic compass. To determine the 3-D position and posture of helicopter, a technique of image recognition using a monocular image is described based on the idea of the sensor fusion of vision and electronic compass. Finally, we show an experiment result, which we obtained in the hovering. The result shows the effectiveness of our system in the compact model-helicopter.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.35 no.12
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• pp.1599-1606
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• 2011

It is possible to study the load characteristics of full-scale hingeless rotor with the changing of physical smallscaled configurations such as rectangular and paddle blades, and metal and composite hubs. In this study, a static test, and a ground and wind-tunnel test were carried out using small-scale rotor models. The static test was carried out to confirm structural stiffness, characteristics of inertia, natural frequency, and damping ratio of rotors, and the ground and wind-tunnel test was carried out to confirm the stability and aerodynamic characteristics under hovering and forward flight conditions. According to the test results, the vertical load in the case of a combination of a small composite hub with paddle blades was higher than that in the case of a metal hub with paddle blades at same condition. Further, it was confirmed that the restraint of the combination of composite hub can be more flexible than the metal hub for the motion of paddle blades.