Rotor Wing Interaction at Low Reynolds Numbers

The increasing interest in micro air vehicles (MAVs) due to the development of small microcontrollers, batteries and sensors has led to unique MAV designs incorporating aspects of fixed-wing, flapping-wing and multi-rotor systems capable of hovering and forward flight. Of interest in this research are tilt-wing and tilt-rotor designs. Although research has been conducted on large vehicles with these capabilities, little research has been performed on the MAV counterparts (Re ~ 100,000 and disk loading < 100 N/m²). The objective of this research project was to build a test stand and measure the rotor-wing interaction of a dual-rotor configuration in hover above a flat plate representing a simple wing. Rotor-wing height and rotor-rotor separation can be set as well as rotor rpm. Surface pressures, motor thrust and motor torque are measured. The equipment was controlled and data was acquired using an in-house LabVIEW code. Results will quantify the ground effect and potential loss of lifting force in hover for different rotor configurations. In future studies, these results will be used to validate computational models.