2011

APPLICATION OF MECHATRONICS
MQ-1 Predator Drone (UAV)
An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV) is an aircraft that is flown by a pilot or a navigator (called Combat Systems Officer on UCAVs) depending on the different Air Forces; however, without a human crew on board the aircraft.

SUBJECT TEACHER - DR. D. B. GOHIL

U09ME750 | Confidential

Krunal Ariwala U09ME750

7/4/2011

APPLICATION OF MECHATRONICS

INTRODUCTION TO MECHATRONICS
Mechatronics has developed worldwide into a very attractive research area. It combines in a synergetic way the classical engineering disciplines mechanical and electrical engineering and computer science, leading to new kinds of products. The term mechatronics for such a synthesis task came from Japan in about 1980, having been coined; it is said, by an employee of the Yasukawa Company. This interconnection of disciplines is actually not new: in aerospace engineering especially it has been well-known for a long time and has been successful. The actual development of mechatronics is based on the availability of relatively cheap computational power and it is further supported by the rise of versatile power electronics. Mechatronics is an interdisciplinary area of engineering that combines mechanical and electrical engineering and computer science. A typical mechatronic system picks up signals from the environment, processes them to generate output signals, transforming them for example into forces, motions and actions. Mechatronics is the synergistic integration of mechanical engineering with electronics and intelligent computer control in the design and manufacture of products and processes.

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OBJECTIVES OF MECHATRONICS
Actual activities in mechatronics are concerned with generating motions in machinery in a controlled way. Controlling motions is necessary, for example, in industrial robots, electrical and hydraulic servo drives, or in magnetic bearings. The main topic is the application of classical methods of control techniques to mechanical plants. We are actually aware of the fact that technical appliances have become part of our daily life, and that we thus have to accept somehow a coexistence of technical systems with biological ones. This coexistence will certainly develop into cooperation, and it will be this cooperation between biological or otherwise naturally unstructured systems and technical ones where mechatronics will play a very essential role. In such cooperation it will be necessary to use machines which can be called intelligent and cooperative, in contrast to current industry where such an interaction is not yet usually needed. Therefore, for any such less structured environments we will need, in future, machines with some kind of intelligence. But it will nearly always be the case that this "machine intelligence" is not sufficient. This brings us to the conclusion: We need machines which can work in an autonomous way up to a certain degree of complexity, and in critical situations or on a higher level of autonomy the necessary interactions with the human operator or user have to be facilitated and structured. Such man/machine interactions require an appropriate approach.

NEW APPLICATIONS
Some new application areas can already be seen to develop in promising directions. One of them is the field of service robots. Even when the actual use of service robots is still very limited due to the still underdeveloped intelligence of these machines, there are already numerous research programs, especially on mobile robots, with prototypes for cleaning tasks in railway stations or schools, for use in construction or in agriculture and forestry, for distribution tasks in office buildings and hospitals, for working in hazardous environments, or for novel cars and transportation systems. The medical area, too, mainly the support of diagnosis, surgery, and caretaking, where a controlled interaction between man and machine is indispensible, is going to be a prominent research and market area for mechatronic products. It is well-known that in aerospace many ideas of mechatronics have already been realized some time ago, and there, mechatronics has helped to make the large dimensions of space accessible to humans. And now, recently, the range of the very small is meeting growing technical interest, with mechatronics leading the way to micromachining and Nano techniques. These new fields will intensively use methods from mechatronics to make motions within the very small dimensions visible and controllable. The topic about to be discussed is about the application of the most important invention in the history of Aerospace, i.e. MQ-1Predator Drone (UAV)

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MQ-1 Predator Drone (UAV)

Military commanders use tactics and strategy in combat to inflict as much damage on the enemy while trying to risk as few personnel and resources as possible. This principle was at the heart of the development of the RQ-1 and MQ-1Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. These high-tech aircraft, controlled by a crew miles away from the dangers of combat, are capable of reconnaissance, combat and support roles in the hairiest of battles. In a worst-case scenario, if a Predator is lost in battle, military personal can simply "crack another one out of the box" and have it up in the air shortly -- and that's without the trauma of casualties or prisoners normally associated with an aircraft going down. The topics to be discussed are Predator UAV's flight system, sensors, weapons and crew, and how the military is using Predators to keep personnel safer both in the air and on land.

SPECIFICATIONS
The Predator UAV is a medium-altitude; long-range aircraft that operates much like any other small plane. A Rotax 914, four-cylinder, four-stroke, 101-horsepower engine, the same engine type commonly used on snowmobiles, turns the main drive shaft. The drive shaft rotates the Predator's two-blade, variable-pitch pusher propeller. The rear-mounted propeller provides both drive and lift. The remote pilot can alter the pitch of the blades to increase or decrease the altitude of the plane and reach speeds of up to 135 mph (120 kts). There is additional lift provided by the aircraft's 48.7-foot (14.8-meter) wingspan, allowing the Predator to reach altitudes of up to 25,000 feet (7,620 meters). The slender

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fuselage and inverted-V tails help the aircraft with stability, and a single rudder housed beneath the propeller steers the craft. The fuselage of the Predator is a mixture of carbon and quartz fibers blended in a composite with Kevlar. Underneath the fuselage, the airframe is supported by a Nomex, foam and wood laminate that are pressed together in layers. Between each layer of laminate, a sturdy fabric is sandwiched in to provide insulation to internal components. The rib work of the structure is built from a carbon/glass fiber tape and aluminum. The sensor housing and wheels are also aluminum. The edges of the wings are titanium and are dotted with microscopic weeping holes that allow an ethylene glycol solution to seep out of internal reservoirs and breakdown ice that forms on the wings during flight. The Predator UAV uses run-ofthe-mill mechanical systems. A 3-kilowatt starter/alternator supplies the craft's electronics with power; this is supplemented with auxiliary battery power. Forward and aft fuel tanks house rubberized fuel bladders that are easy to fill through gas caps located at the top of the fuselage. An operator starts the engine by attaching the umbilical cord of a Starter/Ground Power Cart to the aircraft's starter-control connector, located in the ground panel on the outside of the plane.

For the Engine

The Predator's two fuel tanks combined carry up to 600 pounds of 95-octane to 100-octane reciprocating aircraft engine fuel. The Predator uses 7.6 liters of standard motor oil for lubrication. In addition to venting, conventional automotive antifreeze is used to cool the engine. Two 8-pounds, 14-amp-hour NiCad battery packs are housed in the fuselage for backup power in case the engine or alternator fails.

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An operator stops the engine by hitting a kill switch just behind one of the wings on the side of the plane.

HISTORY & DEVELOPMENT

Robot name: MQ-1 Predator drone Manufactured by: General Atomics Aeronautical Systems First appeared: Eastern Europe, circa 1995 Number built - 360 (285 RQ-1, 75 MQ-1) Unit cost - ~ $4.5 million

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pentagon began experimenting with reconnaissance drones in the early 1980s. The CIA preferred small, lightweight, unobtrusive drones, in contrast to the USAF. Abraham Karem; former chief designer for the Israeli Air Force, agreed to produce a quiet engine for the vehicle, which had until then sounded like "a lawnmower in the sky" after Karem's company had since gone bankrupt and been bought up by a US defense contractor. The new development became known as the "Predator" General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA) was awarded a contract to develop the Predator in January 1994, and the initial Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) phase lasted from January 1994 to June 1996. The aircraft itself was a derivative of the GA Gnat 750 UAV. During the ACTD phase, three systems were purchased from GA, comprising twelve aircraft and three ground control stations.

By the start of the United States Afghan campaign in 2001, the USAF had acquired 60 Predators, and said it had lost 20 of them in action. Few if any of the losses were from enemy action, the worst problem apparently being foul weather, particularly icy conditions. Some critics within the Pentagon saw the high loss rate as a sign of poor operational procedures. In response to the losses caused by cold weather flight
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conditions, a few of the later Predators obtained by the USAF were fitted with deicing systems, along with an uprated turbocharged engine and improved avionics. This improved "Block 1" version was referred to as th e "RQ-1B", or the "MQ-1B" if it carried munitions; the corresponding air vehicle designation was "RQ-1L" or "MQ-1L". The Predator system was initially designated the RQ-1 Predator. The "R" is the United States Department of Defense designation for reconnaissance and the "Q" refers to an unmanned aircraft system.[8] The "1" describes it as being the first of a series of aircraft systems built for unmanned reconnaissance. Pre-production systems were designated as RQ-1A, while the RQ-1B (not to be confused with the RQ-1 Predator B, which became the MQ-9 Reaper) denotes the baseline production configuration. These are designations of the system as a unit. The actual aircraft themselves were designated RQ-1 K for pre-production models and RQ-1 L for production models.[9] In 2002, the USAF officially changed the designation to MQ-1 (the "M" designates multi-role) to reflect its growing use as an armed aircraft.

ANATOMY
As an aircraft, the Predator UAV is little more than a super-fancy remote-controlled plane. But this simple design lends itself well to the Predator's intended functions. Below you can see the placement of components:

1.Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Antenna 2.Inertial Navigation System/GPS 3.Ku-Band Satellite Communications Antenna 4.Video Cassette Recorder 5.GPS Antennas (Left and Right) 6.APX-100 Identification Friend or Foe Transponder

9.Forward Fuel Cell Assembly 10.Aft Fuel Cell Assembly 11.Accessory Bay 12.Engine Cooling Fan 13.Oil Cooler/Radiator 14.914F Engine

17.Power Supply 18.Battery Assembly #1 19.Aft Equipment Bay Tray 20.Secondary Control Module 21.Synthetic Aperture Radar Processor/AGM-114 Electronics Assembly 22.Primary Control Module

25.Flight Sensor Unit 26.Video Encoder 27.De-ice Controller 28.Electro-Optical/Infrared Sensor/AN/AAS-52(V)1 Electronics Assembly 29.Front Bay Payload Tray 30.Ice Detector

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7.Ku-Band Satellite Communications Sensor Processor Modem Assembly 8.C-Band Upper Omnidirectional Antenna Bracket

15.Tail Servo (Left and Right) 16.Battery Assembly #2

23.Front Bay Avionics Tray 24.ARC-210 Receiver/Transmitter

31.Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Receiver/Transmitter 32.Nose Camera Assembly

SPY IN THE SKY

The RQ-1 is the reconnaissance version of the Predator UAV. The letter 'R' is the U.S. Defense Department signature for an aircraft designated for reconnaissance. 'Q' is a designation for unmanned or automated weapons or vehicles. The simple and lightweight design of the Predator's fuselage allows it to carry a payload of up to 450 pounds (204 kg) in addition to the weight of its 100-gallon (378.5-liter) fuel tank. This large fuel tank and the nice gas mileage afforded by the Predator's light weight are great assets for a reconnaissance aircraft. The Predator can stay in the air monitoring enemy positions for up to 24 hours fully loaded. The RQ-1 uses some of the most sophisticated monitoring equipment available today:

Full-color nose camera that the pilot uses primarily to navigate the craft Variable aperture camera (similar to a traditional TV camera) that functions as the Predator's main set of "eyes" Variable aperture infrared camera for low-light and night viewing Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for seeing through haze, clouds or smoke

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Every camera in the plane's forward bank can produce full-motion video and stillframe radar images. The RQ-1 can give real-time imagery of the enemy position to a command post well before the first troops or vehicles arrive. This kind of information allows field commanders to make quick and informed decisions about troop deployment, movements and enemy capabilities. Of course, the greatest advantage of using the Predator is that it has all the advantages of a traditional reconnaissance sortie without ever exposing the pilot to a hostile environment.

WORKING
According to the U.S. Defense Department, "The Predator is a system, not just an aircraft." This is because of the unique way the Predators are deployed and controlled. A fully operational system consists of four Predators (with sensors), a ground control station (GCS) that houses the pilots and sensor operators, and a Predator primary satellite-link communication suite.

Predator UAV remote pilot station

On the ground, there are the techs and support personnel normally associated with aircraft. The whole show takes about 82 personnel to run successfully. This fully integrated team is capable of using the four aircraft for 24-hour surveillance within a 400-nautical-mile radius of the ground control station.

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Predator aviators have described piloting the aircraft as flying an airplane while looking through a straw.

The Predator can run autonomously, executing simple missions such as reconnaissance on a program, or it can run under the control of a crew. The crew of a single Predator UAV consists of one pilot and two sensor operators. The pilot drives the aircraft using a standard flight stick and associated controls that transmit commands over a C-Band line-ofsight data link. When operations are beyond the range of the C-Band, a Ku-Band satellite link is used to relay commands and responses between a satellite and the aircraft. Onboard, the aircraft receives orders via an L-3 Com satellite data link system. The pilots and crews use the images and radar received from the aircraft to make decisions about controlling the plane. Predator aviators have described piloting the aircraft as flying an airplane while looking through a straw. This is quite a change from driving a conventional aircraft from the cockpit. Predator pilots have to rely on the onboard cameras to see what's going on

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around the plane. For the crew, it's a trade-off between the disadvantage of limited visibility and the definite plus of personal safety.

Previously, Predators were equipped with synthetic aperture radar for looking through smoke, clouds or haze, but lack of use validated its removal to reduce weight. The cameras produce full motion video and the synthetic aperture radar produced still frame radar images. There is sufficient bandwidth on the data link for two video sources to be used at one time, but only one video source from the sensor ball can be used at any time due to design limitations. Either the daylight variable aperture or the infrared electro-optical sensor may be operated simultaneously with the synthetic aperture radar, if equipped. All later Predators are equipped with a laser designator that allows the pilot to identify targets for other aircraft and even provide the laser-guidance for manned aircraft. This laser is also the designator for the AGM-114 Hellfire that are carried on the MQ-1.

DEPLOYMENT METHODOLOGY
One of the greatest things about the Predator system is that the whole thing is fully transportable. The aircraft breaks down into six pieces that are transported in a huge crate called the coffin. The coffin contains:

The fuselage Wings Tail surfaces Landing gear The propulsion system Two payload/avionics bay

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The largest component in the system is the GCS. The GCS has wheels that allow it to be rolled onto transports. The Predator primary satellite link consists of a 20-foot (6.1meter) satellite dish and support equipment. This can also be broken down. The coffin, GCS, and satellite link all fit in the cargo hold of a C-130 Hercules or C-141 Star lifter. This is how they are moved around from mission to mission. Once on site, a single Predator can be reassembled by a crew of 4 in fewer than eight hours.

The longest declassified Predator flight to date lasted for 40 hours, 5 minutes. The total flight time has reached 1 million hours as of April 2010

The RQ-1A system needs 1,500 by 40 meters (5,000 by 125 ft.) of hard surface runway with clear line-of-sight to each end from the ground control station to the air vehicles. Initially, all components needed to be located on the same airfield. Currently, the U.S. Air Force uses a concept called "Remote-Split Operations" where the satellite data link is located in a different location and is connected to the GCS through fiber optic cabling. This allows Predators to be launched and recovered by a small "Launch and Recovery Element" and then handed off to a "Mission Control Element" for the rest of the flight. This allows a smaller number of troops to be deployed to a forward location, and consolidates control of the different flights in one location. The improvements in the MQ-1B production version include an ARC-210 radio, an APX100 IFF/SIF with mode 4, a glycol-weeping wet wings ice mitigation system, up-graded turbo-charged engine, fuel injection, longer wings, dual alternators as well as other improvements. The Predator's infrared camera with digitally-enhanced zoom has the capability of identifying the heat signature of a human body from an altitude of 3 km (10,000 ft), making the aircraft an ideal search and rescue tool.

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BATTLE PERFORMANCE
The only thing better than having a robotic airplane assist forces in making decisions about how to fight a battle is to have a robotic airplane actually fight the battle for you. That is where the Predator UAV MQ-1 Hunter/Killer comes into play. Replacing the camera array with the Multispectral Targeting System (MTS) and loading the Predator with two Hellfire transforms this battlefield spotter into a deadly automated combatant. The 'M' in MQ-1 is the Defense Department designation for multipurpose aircraft; by adding the MTS and Hellfire missiles to the Predator, it truly becomes a multifunctional battle aircraft. The MTS includes the AGM-114 Hellfire missile targeting system, electro-optical infrared system, laser designator, and laser illuminator. All of these components give the Predator and its operators multiple ways to acquire a target in any combat environment. The Predator fires a laser or infrared beam from the MTS ball located near the nose of the plane. This laser can be used in two ways:

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The beam lands on the target and pulses to attract the laser seekers at the end of each Hellfire missile. The on-board computer uses the beam to makes calculations about trajectory and distance. Sensors bundled in the MTS also calculate wind speed, direction, and other battlefield variables to gather all of this data into a firing solution. This process is known as "painting the target." Once a target is painted, the MQ-1 can unleash its own missiles to destroy the target or send the firing solution to other aircraft or ground forces so they can destroy it.

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FUTURE

New variations on the Predator are being created to expand its capabilities. By modifying the airframe and expanding the wing span to 86 feet (26 meters), they will be able to fly the new Predator variations at up to 50,000 feet (15,240 meters). The new model is called the MQ-9 Altair. It will be used during peace time for scientific and atmospheric research. The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard will have their own versions of the new Predator that are used for surveillance and reconnaissance. The Predator is not the only UAV deployed by the U.S. military. The RQ-2 Pioneer, RQ-3 Dark Star, RQ-4 Global Hawk, RQ-5 Hunter, RQ-6 Outrider, and RQ-7 Shadow have all been used in a reconnaissance capacity since the early 1990s. The Predator and its variations are, however, the only UAVs with a combat role and the UAVs most capable of flying into battle alongside manned warships. With the proliferation of remotely-operated and automated combat units, the trend in military technology seems to be moving toward missions carried out by automated warriors, with the flesh-and-blood controllers battling safely from behind computer terminals.

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