BUAA VSTOL UAV

BUAA V/STOL UAVs are Chinese experimental UAVs developed by Beihang University (BUAA), and they are primarily intended to be used to explore VSTOL technologies, namely, tiltrotor and tiltwing technologies.

Platypus

BUAA Platypus is a Chinese experimental UAV designed to explore aircraft carrier take-off and landing technology. Among other Chinese experimental aircraft in the same category, BUAA Platypus is the most complex one by adopting features that are rear among other aircraft. Platypus is in twin boom layout with propulsion provided by a propeller driven pusher engine mounted at the rear end of the fuselage. What is unique about BUAA Platypus is that it adopts an extendable wing. The outer section of the wing is housed inside the inner portions, and can either be extended out when needed, or retrack back into the inner section of the wing.^[1] In addition, variable camber wing is also incorporated. Flight control system is iFly-1FA autopilot and the ground control station is based on strapdown computer provided by Beijing EOVC Intelligent (研祥智能) BUAA Platypus made its public debut in the AVIC UAV competition held in 2011 and won second place.

Tiltrotor

BUAA tiltrotor UAV is a VSTOL UAV designed by Mr. Wang Yao-Shen (王耀坤), a graduate student of BUAA. The layout of this UAV is unique in that it is a mixture of conventional and twin boom layouts: at the first glance, the UAV appears to be in conventional layout with tricycle landing gear. Up on closer inspection, the fuselage of the UAV is actually twin boom extending forward from the wing, and the booms are joined together at the tip by a nose cone. The space between the booms, wing, and nose cone is the place where a two-blade propeller driven engine is installed,^[2] and this is the heart of the this tilt rotor design, and it is specially designed to avoid potential catastrophic failure of Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey: if one of the engine of the twin engine V-22 fails, the aircraft would crash due to the imbalance of the power. BUAA tiltrotor utilizes only a single engine of a simpler design, thus avoding the potential danger.^[3] The complete name of this tiltrotor UAV is Experimental aircraft based on tilt (rotor) propulsion system that can freely take-off and land. (Ji-Yu Qing-Zhuan Dong-Li Xi-Tong de Ke Zi-You Qi-Jiang Yan-Zheng-Ji, 基于倾转动力系统的可自由起降验证机), and made its public debut ^[4]

Tiltwing

BUAA tiltwing UAV is a VSTOL UAV also designed by Mr. Wang Yao-Shen, the designer of BUAA tiltrotor UAV. BUAA Tiltrotor UAV is a twin engine UAV in conventional layout with twin tails. Propulsion is provided by a pair of propeller driven piston engines with one mounted in the midpoint of each wing. Unlike most tiltrotor aircraft, the wing of BUAA tiltrotor cannot be completely tilted, but instead, only the engine and the out portion of the wing can be tilted to up to ninety degrees during take-off and landing for VSTOL take-off, and the inner portion of the each wing is fixed and cannot be tilted. The rotor/engine would tilt back to the position in line with the inner portion of the wing during flight to achieve normal flight of fixed wing aircraft.^[5]

See also

List of unmanned aerial vehicles of the People's Republic of China

References