Performance Enhancement of Cycloidal Rotor System with Elliptic Blades

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are extending the utilized region to various fields like reconnaissance, real-estate aerial photography, traffic monitoring and atmospheric science. Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) and hovering capabilities are highly significant for the applications. Cyclocopter is an alternative VTOL UAV to other conventional and unconventional UAVs. In this report, experimental study on performance enhancement of cycloidal rotor system is conducted by investigation between two types of rotors; cycloidal rotor with rectangular blades and that with elliptic blades. Based on the previous research, detailed specifications are designed through aerodynamic and structural analyses. Cyclocopter has four rotors, and each rotor has four blades. Predicted thrust of the cyclocopter is 166 N, where the required power is estimated to 2240 Watts. This study demonstrates that cycloidal rotor with elliptic blades superior to that with rectangular blades aerodynamically. Rotor with elliptic blades has advantages of more thrust at the same rotation condition and less pitch angle and less rotating speed at the same thrust condition. Center-supported type is applied for the elliptic blade, beside endsupported type is implemented for rectangular blade. Improvement of control mechanism of cycloidal rotor with elliptic blade is conducted for more reliable and robust motion of the blade.