Worlds First Autonomous Ground Effect Vehicle/Ekranoplan? RCTestFlight Collaboration

What you're looking at is an akrana plan or

ground

effect

vehicle

that

autonomous

ly navigates to various preset waypoints on a map using the open source autopilot software known as artypilot. This is the story of how this project came about. I was watching a video by youtuber rc. test flight on a long-range

autonomous

boat drone and it seemed like a great idea to do it in a chronoplane version. Everyone in the comments section seemed to have the same thought instead of following the idea. I approached the rc test flight. to see if he wanted to do a joint project, it turned out that he was already working on custom code for Arduplane for that purpose and this

collaboration

was born.

I was also curious to see if custom code in the arduplane was necessary or if the arduplane could be made to work well enough, so what is the

ground

effect

? Look at these pelicans flying at various heights above the water. You will notice that the lower pelican, which is closer to the water, has a smaller, flattened wingtip vortex, while the upper pelican, which is farther from the water has a much larger and stronger wingtip vortex. Stronger vortex increases drag and therefore increases the energy required to fly This is a characteristic of wingspan-dominated ground effect The other extreme is string-dominated ground effect where a short, stubby wing creates a ground effect ram and increases lift rather than reducing resistance.

Notable ground effect flights include the

first

powered flight of the Wright brothers and the only flight of the spruce goose. Many concepts will certainly use the ground effect and these are a few, given the many considerations available. What went into choosing this is the final configuration, while the Air Fish 8 is probably my favorite wing and ground effect craft. Those wings are a real challenge to cut using a hot wire cutter, which is my main prototyping tool. I still wanted a wire-dominated

vehicle

. although with some wing extensions to control roll and of course we need a huge horizontal stabilizer to help us as we get in and out of ground effect test vehicle number one was terrible as the V-tail design had no test vehicle Longitudinal Stability 2 with an additional central rudder was almost as bad.

Test vehicle number three tracked quite well, although it would need to be modified with a large lift to compensate for the large center of pressure changes as it entered and exited ground effect, as well as fins to control roll. Also, when out of ground effect, the design worked pretty well now, this will be the

first

powered wing ground effect test, uh, vehicle, no steering, no ailerons, no rudder, so just a little bit of power and probably It will just spin. circles, but let's try it for the most part, the plane just went around in circles, but every once in a while you make a good run, usually interrupted by the only object in sight, I needed to try something else, so with the engines on the En The front end, understandably, tracks a little better and beats the drag you get with these pontoons here, so as I want it to be as self-contained as possible and as stable as possible on its own, I didn't want to put the engines in the front. due to durability.

They're more protected in the back, but they'll probably just have to go with motors in the front, so I'll do a run here or two just to show you that it tracks a lot better and then will probably increase in size afterwards. There's not much left to learn about this guy. I don't think now that the basic configuration was selected it was time to get specific on xflr5 after many iterations. This was the final design. Xflr5 is not good at modeling fuselages and other bodies so I left out the pontoons and fuselage, however this allows you to get very close without all those features. xflr5 also has an amazing feature that allows you to calculate the difference between the aerodynamics in ground effect and out of ground effect so that you won't have any surprises as you move between the two elements, which is very important in ground effect airplanes. that fly, depending on the design.

Ground effect vehicles can have dramatic changes in center of pressure depending on the height above the surface they are moving on as you move forward. I can see here that the vehicle essentially becomes instantly tail-heavy as the nose rises, leading to a spectacular backflip. The first thing I really needed to figure out before diving into this build was the shape and size of the pontoon using the amazing principles laid out in this book. to make some pontoons that got me very close from the start with a 10 pound dummy weight. I was quite pleased with how the boat sat in the water.

I ended up carving a little more on the rear than the front to get the tail to sit a little deeper in the water and increase the angle of attack of the wing, but other than that it was fine from the start, so I was on the internet learning how to waterproof electronic components for this project and we will use corrosion xhd. on the servos and on the battery and then on the ESC and the autopilot I will use a silicone coating and that is the next step. Now that I knew what I was building, it was time to start building.

Here's a little montage to understand it. For the next 30 seconds of your life, if you are interested in the general construction techniques of this plane, watch this video linked in the upper right corner. After installing the electronics and posing for some glamorous shots, there was really nothing left to do but fly this thing. You may remember that I said I would put the engines in the front, although they clearly ended up in the rear of the ship, after much deliberation and taking into consideration the Airfish 8 and other examples, I decided to take a chance on the rear engines despite my experience . with the free flight model thanks to the yaw damping feature on the arduplane, takeoff is not an event at all in non-stabilized modes, takeoff can sometimes go a little sideways, although what followed were some mornings of tests before the wind picked up. with the center of gravity to find the highest position I could achieve outside of ground effect, as this would help the ship be as efficient as possible, while in ground effect I also needed to check the stability modes for the overall characteristics of flight and they were good enough for me without any adjustments on the arduplane.

I found that with careful entry into ground effect and fine adjustment of the throttle, the Akrano plan would maintain its position in ground effect completely without intervention. Then it was time to add an airspeed sensor for throttle control in Auto Modes, while testing one day a friendly stranger came out and read the airspeeds in the telemetry and mission planner while I manually held the ground effect with the throttle when I went back and looked at the log files later I had actually got it right, thanks kind stranger finally. The last test was here after securing a boat and a test location.

The mission was planned on the computer with gentle turns to avoid a wing strike, which turned out not to be a problem. After some testing, I found that air speed was necessary. to stay higher in autonomous modes than I had needed in stability mode to avoid an inadvertent landing and then it was time to enter ground effect and I switched to a waypoint mission set about a foot above the water in my opinion, The mission was a complete partial success, the portmanteau plan never touched the water and spent about half its time in ground effect. Nor did it rise more than its six-foot wingspan above the water and the large one still had an intact ship to deliver to the RC test flight.

To continue with the project, I can't wait to see stricter altitude control implemented, among other things, to see where this project goes. Head over to the rc test flight channel as I take the ground effect vehicle and this episode for a landing. Please consider subscribing if you think so. I earned it, it really helps. I also usually name all my projects, but this time I couldn't think of anything. Leave a suggestion in the comments below if you can think of something clever and let's see if something works, maybe the RC test flight will work with one. from them