Design, Development & Testing of Test Rig Setup for UAV Propulsion System

In the present market, multiple sophisticate and expensive Thrust Test Rigs for Brushless Motors (BLDC Motor) are available making it impossible to conduct such thrust analysis on a regular and cost effective basis. Moreover the present test rigs are incapable to measure high Thrust values. This needs specialized thrust testing rig which is more expensive.

This paper aims at Design & Development of the Small Scale Test Rig Setup for measurement of the thrust of any Brushless DC motor and helps in refining the Selection of motor and propeller. This is a set up based on cost efficiency factor to implement such rigs, test and for comparing the static thrust produced by the BLDC motor. The fairly simple construction contains a weighing machine, a Tachometer and a Wattmeter to measure the Thrust, RPM and the Current Drawn respectively, and provide comprehensive, accurate and efficient data coming from the BLDC Motor including the Propeller and Electronic Speed Control (ESC).