Autonomous UAV Concept for Titanic Missions

This report details the work completed on the Titan Aerial Vehicle (TAV), an autonomous vertical lift aerial vehicle designed to operate on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. The TAV was designed as the California State University, Los Angeles entry to the 2002 Vertical Lift Aerial Vehicle Student Design Competition sponsored by NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Program. Key requirements for the design included: vertical takeoff from a lander, flight to 2 km cruise altitude in 100 km/h headwinds, mid-mission hover out-of-ground-effect for 1 minute, followed by a vertical landing at a remote site for sample pickup. Moreover, the vehicle’s minimum range was to be at least 300 km while carrying a 10% payload fraction. The TAV is required to conduct multiple flights and missions with a takeoff gross mass not exceeding 100 kg. It was to land on a variety of surfaces while assuming the presence of surface debris up to 0.03 m3 in volume. The final design incorporates a unique ring wing, central fuselage and canards weighing 80 kg gross including 13.8 kg of payload. The ring wing provides lift during horizontal flight, and doubles as a floatation device on methane lakes for refueling. It is powered by a novel methane & oxygen burning piston engine that turns a propeller. All internal components such as avionics, fuel tanks and science instruments are packaged within the carbon fiber/epoxy fuselage.