This paper presents the design, dynamical model, and experimental investigation of an articulated rotor that affords cyclic pitch authority in small unmanned air vehicle rotorcraft without requiring either a mechanical swashplate or blade pitch actuators. An offset flap hinge coincident with a skew lag-pitch hinge is used to impose a positive lag-pitch coupling on one rotor blade and a complementary negative lag-pitch coupling on the other. The motor torque driving the propeller is electronically modulated to excite a lead-lag motion with controlled rotational phase and amplitude; the ensuing once-per-revolution variation in blade pitch obtains the conventional control response and flapping character of fully actuated cyclic systems. The governing nondimensional lag-flap equations including a nonconstant speed hub are shown. The experimentally measured motor torque, the hub speed variation, the cyclic blade lag-pitch response, and the cyclic blade flapping response are compared with model predictions.


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    Title :

    Cyclic Blade Pitch Control Without a Swashplate for Small Helicopters


    Contributors:
    Paulos, James (author) / Yim, Mark (author)

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2018-03-01




    Type of media :

    Conference paper , Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English





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