Subscale EVTOL Testbed for safeTy critical softwarE development and scalability Research (SETTER)

The electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) market for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) applications is still in its fledgling stages in early 2024, despite several players in the market (notably Joby Aviation, CityAirbus, Archer, and Volocopter). However, there is a distinct lack of openly available data on how safety critical software algorithms are deployed in practice and how well they perform. Furthermore, whereas there are a great number of small-scale eVTOL unmanned aerial systems (UAS), there are very few that are specifically set up as representative subscale UAM aircraft. This is especially the case for motor tilt and rotor blade pitch collective subsystems which are rarely found as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) items. This proposal seeks directly to bridge these gaps through the development of “SETTER”: a Subscale EVTOL Testbed for safeTy critical softwarE development and scalability Research. SETTER is planned to be a Phase 1 and 2 STTR proposal, wherein a subscale eVTOL aircraft will be built and flown extensively during Phase 2. These tests will primarily serve to explore the following items: 1. A wide array of failure mode mitigation strategies in the presence of failures to any major DEP subsystem. 2. Aerodynamic and flight dynamics performance optimization through control allocation strategies. 3. The ability to predict full-scale flight dynamics using sub-scale prototypes. SETTER will be designed to have low enough cost, size, and ease of manufacture to be considered a highly attritable testbed with low overhead to enable fast and frequent flight testing. SETTER will be designed with a high degree of modularity in mind, so that testing of different configurations can be accommodated without full re-designs. All designs will be open sourced with accompanying documentation. This Phase 1 STTR proposal is comprised of all preparatory activities required to physically realize SETTER in Phase 2.