Design and Flight Dynamics of a Hand-Launched Foldable Micro Air Vehicle

This paper discusses the development, flight-testing, and flight dynamics modeling of a Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) that could be deployed in a folded configuration via hand launching. This 112-g MAV features folding propeller arms that can lock into a rectangular profile the size of a smartphone. The vehicle is designed to be rapidly deployable via simply throwing it in the air, at which point the arms would unfold and the vehicle would autonomously stabilize to a hovering state. The capability of the feedback controller to stabilize the MAV from different initial conditions including tumbling rates of up to 2500 deg/s was demonstrated via flight-testing. A six-degree-of-freedom flight dynamics model was developed and validated using flight test data obtained using a motion capture system for various hand-launched scenarios. The proposed MAV, with its extreme portability and rapid/robust deployment capability, could be ideal for emergency scenarios, where a standard launch procedure is not feasible.