Composite materials for Micro Air Vehicles (MAV's)

This paper discusses the development of the University of Florida's Micro A ir Vehicle concept. A series of flexible wing based aircraft that possess h ighly desirable flight characteristics were developed. Since computational methods to accurately model flight at the low Reynolds numbers associated w ith this scale are still under development, our effort has relied heavily o n trial and error. Hence a time efficient method was developed to rapidly p roduce prototype designs. The airframe and wings are fabricated using a uni que process that incorporates carbon fiber composite construction. Prototyp es can be fabricated in around five man-hours, allowing many design revisio ns to be tested in a short period of time. The resulting aircraft are far m ore durable, yet lighter, than their conventional counterparts. This proces s allows for thorough testing of each design in order to determine what cha nges were required on the next prototype. The use of carbon fiber allows fo r wing flexibility without sacrificing durability. The construction methods developed for this project were the enabling technology that allowed us to implement our designs. The resulting aircraft were the winning entries in the International Micro Air Vehicle Competition for the past three years. D etails of the construction method are provided in this paper along with a b ackground on our flexible wing concept.