1. Single Line Tethered Glider
System Level Design Review
Team P14462
Kyle Ball
Matthew Douglas
William Charlock
Jon Erbelding
Paul Grossi
Sajid Subhani

2. Team Introduction Team Member Major Sajid Subhani
Industrial Engineer - Team Lead
Paul Grossi
Mechanical Engineer
Matt Douglas
Jon Erbelding
Kyle Ball
Bill Charlock

3. Agenda Project Description Review Customer Needs Review
Customer Requirements Review
Functional Decomposition
Concept Development
Concept Comparison
Data Collection Architecture
Risk Assessment
Project Planning
Work Breakdown Structure

4. Project Description
Glider
Tether
Base
Station
Goal: Design, build, and test a tethered, small-scale, human-controlled glider.
Critical Project Objectives:
Maintain maximum tension on the tether
Sustaining horizontal and vertical flight paths
Measure and record tether tension and position
Understand the influential parameters for sustained, tethered, unpowered flight
Operator w/
controller

5. Customer Requirements

6. Engineering Requirements
Yellow: Major design
Biege: DAQ
Grey: Test flight
White: System environment

7. Functional Decomposition

8. Functional Decomposition

9. Functional Decomposition

10. Functional Decomposition

11. Concept Development Gliders Buy an RC glider
Design and build an RC glider
Measurement Devices on Base Station
Buy a 3-axis Load Cell
Build Load Cell from three 1-axis Load Cells
GPS with Force Gauge
Resistance Gyro with Force Gauge
IMU with 1-axis Load Cell

12. Art’s Plane Sustained multiple damages Gained crash experience
Possible tethered flight concept
tests
Salvage parts
Sorry Art 

13. Glider Concepts

14. Buy Glider Pros: Pre-Engineered to Fly Can purchase spare parts
Fast shipping
Modifiable
Cons:
Not guaranteed to fly with tether
Expensive
Limited modifications

15. Benchmarking (Buy) Bixler 2 Sky Eye Airwing WingSurfer Phoenix 2000
Plane
Price ($)
Bixler v1.1 EPO 1400mm - (ARF)
56.70
Hobbyking Bixler 2 EPO 1500 mm w/ Brushless Motor, Servos and Optional Flaps (ARF)
69.99
AXN Floater-Jet w/ Servo, Motor, ESC (EPO) PNF
65.22
Hobbyking Sky Eye EPO FPV/Glider w/ Flaps 2000mm (PNF)
120.33
Phoenix 2000 EPO Composite R/C Glider (Plug and Fly)
78.72
Airfield Giant Convertible EDF Power RC Glider Almost Ready to Fly 2400mm Wingspan
209.95
Airwing RC WingSurfer Airplane Glider 4 Channel Almost Ready to Fly RC 1400mm Wingspan
79.95
Airwing RC Bobcat 6 Channel Pusher Plane RC Kit 1143mm Wingspan
149.95
TT-62 Alekto Electric Twin-Engine Fiberglass RC Airplane Kit
127.40
Bixler 2
Sky Eye
Airwing WingSurfer
Phoenix 2000

16. Build Glider Pros: Can optimize plane for tethered flight
Build spare sparts
Resources available
Cons:
Not guaranteed to fly
Requires time to build
Complex
Hard to balance
Could become expensive if mistakes are made

17. Benchmarking (Build)
Experimental Airlines tutorials (Photon Model as baseline)
Custom/interchangable design (wing, fuselage, rudder, etc.)
~$80 - $100 (~50%-70% “1 time cost”)

18. Measurement Concepts

19. Force Gauge and Resistance Gyro
Pros:
Innovative
Cons:
Expensive
Complex Data
Internal Turbulence
Requires current line on tether
Difficult to calibrate
Difficult to set up

20. 3 Single-Axis Load Cells
Pros:
Can repair individual components
Accurate
Cheap Components
Cons:
Difficult to calibrate
Potential for noisy data

21. 3-Axis Load Cell Pros: Accurate Precalibrated Intuitive Setup Cons:
Expensive

22. IMU Board and 1-Axis Load Cell
Pros:
Provides accurate position and orientation data
Cons:
Requires noise filtering
Difficult to calibrate
IMU system would be on glider

23. Force Gauge and GPS Pros: Digital Data Accurate force measure Cons:
Expensive
GPS on glider changes weight
Difficult to calibrate
Difficult to set up
Innacurate position

24. 2 Potentiometers and 1-Axis Load Cell
Pros
Inexpensive
Accurate angles
Cons
Easily breakable
Require precise machining

25. Pugh Diagram – Base Station

26. Pugh Diagram – Base Station

27. Top 3 System Concepts 3 Single Axis Load Cell
IMU with Single Axis Load Cell
2 Potentiometers with Single Axis Load Cell

28. Data Collection Architecture
Data acquisition: LabVIEW or Arduino
Storage: SD Card or Laptop
Data Collection Requirements:
Parameter
Marginal Value
Ideal Value
Units
Data Sampling Rate
100
500 Hz
Tension Resolution
0.1
0.01 N
Angular Position Resolution
0.5
deg

29. Preliminary Budget Outline
Purchase Price ($)
Glider
Glider
Receiver
Battery x
Base Station
Materials
Electronics
Total
Remaining (For Mistakes and Repairs)

30. Preliminary Budget Outline

31. Risk Assessment (Full)

32. Risk Assessment (High Risk)

33. Project Planning

34. Project Planning

35. Work Breakdown Structure
Paul: Glider Dynamics & IMU Implementation
Jon: Glider Dynamics & Load Cell Implementation
Kyle: EDGE & Load Cell Implementation / Base Station Construction
Matt: Glider Dynamics, Purchased Gliders Analysis & Potentiometer Implementation
Saj: DOE Research & Team Management
Bill: Built Glider Analysis & DAQ

36. Questions?

37. References