https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34286 Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:48:49 GMT 2026-04-08T13:48:49Z https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/101283 Development of an In-Flight-Deployable Micro-UAV Tao, Toby S.; Hansman, R. John A micro-UAV system was developed to be deployed from a host aircraft at normal jet cruise conditions (between 25,000 and 35,000 feet altitude and Mach 0.8) using the standard MJU-10/B countermeasure flare form factor. The system (measuring 49mm × 62mm × 180mm) fits in the flare canister in place of the chaff. The 220-gram battery-powered, pusher-propelled UAV has folding tandem wings with elevon control surfaces on the rear wing. A case protects the UAV during ejection. In freefall, the system is stabilized and decelerated with a drag streamer to approximately 40 m/s, when the case opens and the vehicle unfolds. The UAV was designed to maximize endurance while station-keeping in 30 m/s winds. Estimated level-flight endurance at 30,000 feet carrying a 10-gram payload is 45 minutes with greater endurance at lower altitudes. Up to 45 minutes of glide endurance can be achieved depending on deployment altitude. The small dimensions and low Reynolds number of the wings required manufacturing constraints to be considered in the airfoil design to prevent laminar separation which impacted controllability. Compact folding mechanisms were designed to enable wing folding. An elevon control mechanism was designed to engage automatically with the control surface when the rear wing unfold. Ejection shock, deployment, and flight tests were conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of the concept. Thu, 25 Feb 2016 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/101283 2016-02-25T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/101282 Design and Performance of an Adaptable Aircraft Manufacturing Concept Tao, Tony; Hansman, R. John In conventional “vehicle-focused” aircraft design and manufacturing, aircraft are optimized for a given mission and then manufactured using custom-built tooling. This strategy ensures the highest vehicle performance for any given mission but is inflexible in that accommodating new missions requires the production of new tooling, a time-consuming and expensive process. An alternative, “Adaptable Aircraft Manufacturing” concept, is explored in which a structural bus, interconnect system, and subsection molding allows the production of a series of composite aircraft from a single set of molds which are compatible with vacuum-autoclave construction techniques. To design common molds, airfoils and planform taper angle must be designed across multiple vehicles’ performance spaces. Performance of any individual design is reduced due to inherent aerodynamic and structural inefficiencies of the adaptably-manufactured airframe, but molding costs and production time are greatly reduced. By molding a subsection, the designer is free to choose aspect ratio and wing area within the molding envelope for new aircraft designed after mold fabrication. In applications where development time and robustness to changes in mission specification is more important than individual aircraft performance, this concept provides significant advantages. To demonstrate the feasibility of the concept, three UAVs of differing sizes (a hand-launched UAV, a reconnaissance UAV, and a multi-payload UAV) were constructed from a single set of molds. The aircraft were constructed, flight-tested, and their performance evaluated to determine the benefits and penalties of this approach as compared to three virtual, equivalent, conventionally-manufactured aircraft. The adaptably-manufactured aircraft are estimated to suffer an average of 8% increase in weight and a reduction of 17% in endurance. The benefit is a reduction of 58% of tooling material and labor and a reduction of 56% in build time as compared to the manufacturing of three individual, conventionally-built aircraft. Thu, 25 Feb 2016 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/101282 2016-02-25T00:00:00Z