Kabir Khwaja
Pronouns: he/him
Research Mentor(s): Kimberlee Kearfott
Research Mentor School/College/Department: NERS/BME / Engineering
Program: UROP
Session: Session 2 (10:00am – 10:50am)
Authors: Kabir Khwaja, Hythem Beydoun, Siddharth Gupta, Meredith Doan, Jordyn Vermut, Kimberlee Kearfott
Abstract
Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have a high risk of damage during operation. Replacement parts and materials needed to make repairs are often affected by supply chain disruptions, making it difficult to repair the system in a timely manner. By using additive manufacturing, time and cost constraints can be alleviated. While performing a flight test of a custom-designed homemade drone, a flaw was discovered in the design of the arm mount which resulted in a failure of the mount, destroying the connection between the arm and the drone. Obtaining a costly replacement part for the mount would have taken roughly 14 d. Using computer aided design (CAD), a replacement part was created. Following this, Ansys Discovery was used to perform finite element analysis on the CAD model, enabling improvement of the structural integrity of the part. Prototypes were rapidly produced using an Ultimaker S5 fused filament fabrication 3-D printer. At roughly $0.02, the cost of a printed part was approximately 0.13% of the cost of a replacement part and took ~6 h to print. The process from design to fabrication took less than a day, which accelerated repair, development, and testing significantly. Furthermore, the use of additive manufacturing is not limited to the repair of a single part. Using a Bambu X-1 3-D printer, arm joints, motor mounts, frame plates, and propellers have been fabricated. This method offers not just rapid repair, but prototyping of customized and interchangeable parts. For example, both traditional and toroidal propellers have been created. Using additive manufacturing, drone frames and payload systems can all be fabricated. Overall, the low cost of material, speed of production, and versatility make additive manufacturing an effective option for a variety of UAS applications.
