Other Projects

Technology Demonstrator Drone : Design and Manufacture of a Quadrotor for Dropping Tear Gas Grenades in Riot Areas

Course Name - Structural Design

Course Faculty - Prof. H. S. N. Murthy and Prof. Shyam Keralavarma

Brief Description

  • Part of a 6 member team to design and construct a VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing) platform (Quadrotor) to drop tear gas grenades in a riot area.
  • Named the quadrotor as Riot QuadCop.
  • Built an In-house Thrust Measuring Bed to investigate the thrust loss due to wake interaction of adjacent rotors of a quadrotor.
  • Created a 3-D SOLIDWORKS model and performed Finite element analysis (FEA) simulation using ANSYS to obtain the shear stress distribution.
  • Developed Grenade dropping mechanism, Protection mechanism for propellers and Shock absorbing mechanism to protect landing gears.

Fig. 1. A 3-D SOLIDWORKS model of Thrust measuring bed.

Fig. 2. Picture of the Thrust measuring bed kept on a weighing balance to record the thrust provided by the propellers.

Fig. 3. FEA simulation for the simplest quadrotor design (1st design). This design is used to manufacture the quadrotor.

Fig. 4. 3-D SOLIDWORKS models of two other quadrotor body design. (2nd and 3rd design)

Fig. 5. FEA simulation for 2nd quadrotor body design.

Fig. 6. FEA simulation for 3rd quadrotor body design.

Fig. 7. A 3-D model of the dropping mechanism (1st design).

Fig. 8. A 3-D model of the dropping mechanism (2nd design).

Fig. 9. A 3-D printed model of a hollow cylindrical body for the dropping mechanism.

Fig. 10. Actual dropping mechanism.

Fig. 11. (a) Quadrotor assembly : 4 Aluminium arms and 2 central plates made up of Hylem sheet.

Fig. 11. (b) Quadrotor assembly : Main body comprises of central plates, arms and motors.

Fig. 11. (c) Quadrotor assembly : Addition of landing gears and shock absorbing balls at the bottom of the landing gears.

Fig. 11. (d) Quadrotor assembly : Addition of wire mesh to protect the propellers.

Fig. 11. (e) Quadrotor assembly : Addition of side protection system for the propellers.

Fig. 11. (f) Quadrotor assembly : Addition of flight control system, dropping mechanism and propellers.

Fig. 12. Riot QuadCop (Quadrotor) designing and manufacturing team.

Fig. 13. Riot QuadCop (Quadrotor) in mid-air.

Video 1 The main test flight 3 accomplishing the full mission (dropping 3 tennis balls one after the other at three different location to simulate the dropping of grenades). Lift off was normal. Payloads (3 balls) were dropped one after the other using 2 servos. The landing was smooth.

Structural_Design_Report.pdf

Design and Manufacture of a Bourdon Pressure Gauge

Course Name - Experimental Aerodynamics

Course Faculty - Prof. Manikandan Mathur

  • Coupled mechanical deformation of a flattened ellipsoid tube bent in 'C' shape closed at one end with a gear mechanism to measure gauge pressure.
  • Investigated pressure sensitivity of the gauge with cross sectional ellipticity (ratio of the major axis to the minor axis of the elliptic cross section) of the bourdon tube.
  • Observed higher sensitivity for a bourdon tube with higher cross sectional ellipticity.

Video 1. A video describing the manufacturing process of a Bourdon pressure gauge. (Courtesy - YouTube video)

Fig. 14. Various components of a Bourdon pressure gauge. (Courtesy - Google images)

Fig. 15. The flattened ellipsoid stainless steel tube bent in 'C' shape (bourdon tube) fixed on a wood piece with the free end of the tube connected to a gear mechanism.

Fig. 16. The final manufactured Bourdon pressure gauge with stainless steel bourdon tube, gear mechanism, dial, pointer, and the holding wood piece.