Join us for a dinner meeting and technical lecture!
Join AIAA San Diego for an evening Technical Lecture, from Member Byron Ward of Wayfarer Aircraft Research & Development, on his most recent paper “Flight Testing Instrumentation Development and Integration for a Subscale Integrated High Lift Propulsor Testbed”. Flight and wind tunnel testing was performed to evaluate the performance of the Integrated High Lift Propulsor (IHLP), a novel Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP) system.
Abstract:
Recent advancements in electric and hybrid-electric aircraft have sparked interest in Advanced Aerial Mobility (AAM), enabling innovative air transport solutions. Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP), with its favorable aero-propulsive interactions, is a key focus for advanced aircraft designs, and thus an area of significant interest for academia and industry. Wayfarer Aircraft has developed and patented a novel new form of of blown wing lift augmentation called the Integrated High Lift Propulsor (IHLP), which uses DEP integrated with a Krueger slat or flap. This paper presents the instrumented, reconfigurable subscale IHLP distributed electric propulsion testbed that will be used to parameterize the performance and handling qualities (P&HQ) of IHLP. The subscale aircraft, which was developed from a 35%-scale Cessna 182 R/C scale model aircraft, was instrumented with a custom-integrated flight control and data acquisition system developed to enable this flight research - specifically a Holybro Pixhawk 6X autopilot running custom flight control software coupled with a custom version of the Al Volo FDAQ data acquisition system. The paper presents IHLP including its advantages and performance improvements in high-lift and cruise conditions compared to conventional distributed electric propulsion (DEP) systems. The detailed development of the IHLP subscale testbed are presented, including modifications, instrumentation design, and the integration of the data acquisition and flight control systems. Preliminary results from ground testing are presented to demonstrate the capabilities of the instrumented IHLP testbed.