3515. Wing Morphing Design Utilizing Macro Fiber Composite Smart Materials

Paper

Abstract

Demonstrate the abilities of morphing materials technology by modifying a current remote controlled aircraft model using an electric propulsion system and designing and fabricating control surfaces that use Smart Materials micro-fiber-composites (MFCs). The design must be marketable in the R/C community.
The requirements for this project as described above contain basic guidelines for this Senior Design project. First and foremost, we must come up with a way to replace tradition servo controlled surfaces with MFC actuated surfaces in an effective manner. Not only will the control surfaces need to respond as well as, if not better than, the classic servo-motor system, but it will also need to be a fairly simple, potentially cost effective design that can easily be reproduced. The overall goal of this project is to showcase the capabilities of MFCs on an aircraft that could be reproduced on a large scale in today’s R/C market.