Conceptual Design of Unmanned Aerial Systems

Catalog description

In this course, students learn how to employ systems engineering techniques and apply engineering fundamentals/concepts to the mission-driven conceptual design of an unmanned aerial system (UAS). It brings together most of the engineering subjects studied so far and requires the students to demonstrate creativity in the application of these concepts using trade-off studies. The relationship between three major phases of design; conceptual design, preliminary design, and detail design with regards to UAS will be presented. This course provides engineering students an opportunity to evolve UAS design requirements, conduct safety assessment, and practice subsystem integration to develop an optimal configuration. Due to engineering characteristics of the aerial vehicle, a review of the aerodynamics, flight performance, flight stability and control, aero-structures is also provided. The course includes an UAS design project, with UAV mission sets and lectures devoted to various aspects of the conceptual design and analysis of subsystems (mainly aerial vehicle, ground station, and launch and recovery subsystem). During this project students form teams for various subsystems, and walk through design procedures, processes.