Design of a Catapulted Self-deployable UAV

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is playing a gradually enhanced role in fields of recon and information acquisition, however restricted departure condition of fixed wing aircrafts, take-off preparation time of multirotor aircrafts etc. have limited its further applications. This research aims to combine advantage of hovering and self-deployable departure to reconcile the shortcomings, meanwhile adapts to drone swarm trend. A catapulted self-deployable quadrotor is designed using 3D modelling software, and later a compatible self-deployable control algorithm is developed using STM32F103 microcontroller, along with its circuitry. Eventually, a prototype of the design is 3D printed, assembled and tested. This design shows merits of easy to carry, low requirements for take-off conditions and good hovering performance and is compatible for multi-UAVs cooperation tendency.