Simulation and Flight-Testing of Pitch & RPM Thrust Control for eVTOL Aircraft

The DAR-VSDDL team proposes to accelerate the development of full-scale eVTOL aircraft configurations. • The research proposed by the team is intended to accelerate the development timeline of full-scale eVTOL aircraft via subscale flight testing, with aerodynamics, propulsion, flight dynamics, and controls being the primary areas of focus. • In Phase I, the team will perform flight tests to expand the flight envelope of the RAVEN-RRTV to include transitions between vertical flight mode (VFM) and forward flight mode (FFM). This cost-effective, easy-to-manufacture, and easy-to-repair subscale platform will provide the team with valuable flight test data while minimizing financial cost and risk. It is anticipated that NASA Langley researchers will publish results from RAVEN-SWFT flight tests in the Phase I timeframe, offering the opportunity to compare flight data between two similarly sized vehicles, one using variable-pitch propulsors and the other fixed-pitch. • To demonstrate the applicability of the technical approach to more than one vehicle configuration, the team will modify the RAVEN-RRTV to give a 4+1 lift-plus-cruise configuration, which will also be flight-tested during Phase I to yield additional flight data for subsequent analysis. • During Phase II, DARcorporation will use vehicle with a higher maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) of 55 lb and correspondingly larger dimensions which matches the Phase I configuration. The design work for this larger configuration will occur in Phase I. The flight data from the flight tests in Phase II will allow the team to develop and verify scaling relationships between the two subscale vehicles. These relations and the results from the Phase I and Phase II flight tests will allow for prediction of performance and dynamics of larger vehicles. • For each subscale vehicle, as well as the full-scale configurations, time-domain flight simulation models will be