3 DOF Hover

Flight dynamics and control of vertical lift-off vehicles

Aerospace Control Electromechanical Control

The 3 DOF Hover experiment provides an economical test bed to understand and develop control laws for flight dynamics and control of vehicles with vertical lift off.

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The 3 DOF Hover consists of a planar round frame with four propellers. The frame is mounted on a three degrees of freedom pivot joint that enables the body to rotate about the roll, pitch and yaw axes. The propellers are driven by four DC motors that are mounted at the vertices of the frame. The propellers generate a lift force that can be used to directly control the pitch and roll angles. Two of the propellers are counter-rotating, so that the total torque in the system is balanced when the thrust of the four propellers is approximately equal.

Three degrees of freedom (3 DOF) – body rotates about pitch and yaw axes
Precise, stiff and heavy-duty machined components
Propellers driven by high-quality Pittman DC motors
High-resolution optical encoders for precise position measurements
Slip ring allows infinite motion about the yaw axis

Device mass	3.46 kg
Device height (ground to top of base)	45 cm
Helicopter body mass	1.39 kg
Helicopter body length	48 cm
Base dimensions (W x L)	17.5 cm x 17.5 cm
Encoder resolution (in quadrature)	8192 counts/rev
Pitch angle range	75 (± 37.5 deg)
Yaw angle range	360 deg
Motor / propeller force-thrust constant	0.119 N/V
Motor / propeller torque thrust constant	0.0036 N.m/V
Propeller diameter	20.3 cm
Propeller pitch	15.2 cm
Motor armature resistance	0.83 Ω
Motor current-torque constant	0.0182 N.m/A