Project: CASPIAN
Team # 16Â
Johan Marcos, Kyan Sadeghilari, Kevin Carpenter, Kevin Marquez
Welcome to Project: CASPIAN. Our main goal is to achieve a hybrid drone that will be able to seamlessly transition from air to water and vice versa
Reflection
The Caspian project calls for the selection process of creating and selecting the most efficient drone design for the purpose of air to water transition. From the beginning steps of brainstorming; which brought the group to produces a variety of ideas, all the way to choosing a final design that met all of our requirements.Â
from the beginning of the project the team knew we had to get organize and set channels of communication for the group to communicate for this project. This was very important to set-up since we all ave different schedules and classes. This would also help us keep each one of us updated on any thing that came up in this project at all time. We set up a main group chat with the only purpose of scheduling meetings and update each other on any design changes.Â
The team also decided to give roles to each other in order to be more organized. This helped by not just having a bunch of people not knowing what to do, but instead to divide the responsibility equally. Three of our group members live together, while the fourth one lived a block away. This close proximity also allowed us to meet more frequently then other groups could. This also opened more options on meeting locations and time. The group then shared each other's scheduled to see when we were all available, and from there decide optimal weekly meeting dates. This helped in keeping the group productive and up to date with whatever was due or needed to be done.Â
As for myself, I acted as a connecting piece for my group. While many of my teammates weren't close to each other, I on the other hand was very friendly with all of them. So I would contact all of them when we would have a meeting, as well remind people of things that were do. I also redrew all the deign drawing due to my background in art. I mostly gravitated with design modeling and in the future modeling as well. With being the only member in the group with knowledge in CFD analysis, I will be in charge of making sure all the computational modeling is done correctly and the changes to the design are met.
As the project continued there where many things that tested the team and myself as well. We faced many challenges with the design itself, and which design to go with. The reason for this is due to the nature of our project, there is much need research to finalize a working design. I was focus on the head design of the drone head. After researching many diving birds, the group was able to narrow it down to a king penguin and a North American Cormonet. These two were selected for there various physical geometry and the impact it hold to maintaining the steady state response of the system, in this case the body, once it enters the water. The basic geometry has a long slender beak to so minimize surface area  on impact and a curve bottom to allow the the body to naturally curve up after entry.
Problem Solving
How I solve problems and how I have learned
In the field of engineering, problem solving abilities are the pinnacle  of all skill that a good engineer should develop. This skill is developed through experience and developing many methods. In my experience I have developed many ways of going about solving a problem.Â
The first steps I would take is to identify the problem and what type of problem it is. A problem can be either systematic, in which there is something wrong with a system, or a problem is with human error, in which the problem is people. Once it has been identify, my second step is to go to either were the source of the problem is or where did the problem start. This can be done my many was of looking for the origin of the problem. I go through the system or talk to everyone that is involve to see were something could go wrong. Once I have located what caused the problem or the source, my final step would be the rectify the mistake or fix in the most efficient way possible. This can be in many ways. From a systematic problem it could mean to re-design the system, or redo the calculations or some other technical solution can be implemented to find a new solution. For a human problem this may mean talking to people. This problem are easier for me to solve personally, due to my friendly demeanor. I would talk with people to figure out why the problem arose, an example can be if two teammates are getting along, or if one teammate isn't doing work, I would try to understand why and try to improve on their work quality without being confrontational.
I have developed this system to problem solving by learning how others solve problems and through seeing how others handle problems that have faced. I have been inspired by many in my life to learn how to solve problems, below are some examples on how I have developed these skills. I asked the following a problem, which was: if your heater at home doesn't work what do you do?
Jason Ning has helped me developed a more systematic method of solving problems. He tackles problems by analyzing them first from the beginning, and following each step meticulously until he sees where the problem starts. His method influenced me by showing me that you should also start at the beginning of any system and to go through everything, even if it seems elementary or redundant. He would go and check the chircuit board first and make sure everything is okay there. Then go from there all the way to the thermostat.
Jason Ning
Creativity Sources
In many projects, one must be creative to find innovating solutions to problems. This project is no different; its only through creativity can we find a design that can meet all of our needs. Below are some sources we used to find inspirations to trying to develop a seamlessly transitioning drone that can go from air to water. With drones that already exists that have this type of technology, none of them successfully transition in a seamless manor. Through this project I have learned my curiosity for bio-inspired robots, and fluid and thermal computational analysis. I will be doing more research on these topics in later iterations of our design as well.
How sea birds plunge-dive without injuries
In this research report, scientist and engineers try to understand the mechanism behind how birds are able to dive into the water without injuring their necks. This research lead to the first idea of making a bio inspired drone. After seeing that birds can quickly go from air to water. This article helped me in understanding what actual design helps birds from not getting injured. This also helped lay a basic foundation for the shape and motion of the drone, while not many drones have bird shape body, the main focus lies in two parts, the beak and the length of the body.
Rutgers University drone
In this article, we discovered that a different school was also working a similar problem as we were. The school of Engineering at Rutgers University has worked on developing a prototype of a done that can go from air to water and vice versa. But as can be seen from their design, it still lacks a seamless transition that we are trying to develop. But this does gives me more ideas on how to incorporate the props in underwater navigation.
Water Entry Impact Dynamics of Diving Birds
This article focus on the beak of the birds and the angle of attract. This article was critical in the original idea of the front of the drone. This is because when I first was thinking of a bio-inspired drone, i did not know how to integrate the beak of the bird for the efficiency of the drone, nor did I know how much of an impact it would have. Through this research article, i was able to learn the impact that the shape of the beak has on the control system of the bird as it enters the water and leaves the water
A drone that can fly, float and dive underwater
This article is very similar to that of Rutgers University. This drone was developed by Oakland University's Embedded Systems Research Laboratory that can not only fly, but also land on and even navigate under the water's surface. This drone design keeps the basic drone look but it uses legs to balance itself on the surface of the water. This alteration is what separate it from the previous drone designs
Bad Designs
There are many clear examples in large companies and in industry that have show bad designs. The ones listed below are some I have seen that have had the biggest backlash on the over all function of the design. Bad designs can be many things, from making the product less efficient, all the way to people hating the design.
IPhone without the headphone jack
Through many years, Apple has been at the forefront for innovation in the phone industry. Until they decide to make a risky design. They removed the headphone jack from their phones starting at the iPhone 8 and every iteration afterwards. This change lead to many hating the design. This in my eyes is a bad design from the consumer stand point. The person can not listen to music as the phone is charging or use any headphone application as the phone is charging. The consumer has to buy another device to be able to use both. This takes an application away from the phone. This is a clear sign of a bad design.
Christmas lights
Every year families rush to set their Christmas lights outside their house, but every year they get tangled up into a mess. This product has many design flaws. One is the lights get tangled up very easily due to the natural nature of the lights having more then one wire connecting them. Another bad design aspect is that the lights are set up in series, which means if one light goes out they all go out for that section. This makes fixing the broken light impossible because you don't know which one is the broken one. This design is a bad design because it hinders the user from fixing it and using it
Da Vinci Surgical Robot
The Da vinci surgical robot while may sounding like a great idea, it has many design flaws. Its the design flaws which lead to the recall of many of the robots. For one the surgical instruments while small are still too large for many of the surgery that could be useful to have a machine. The robot has also show a lot of incidents in where the person was hurt or killed. The robot is also very expensive which while many medical equipment is , this robot at the cost of $2 million dollars. This is a bad design and a bad solution in all. The design is affordable and it has cause a lot of failures in the surgery.
My Bad Designs
The designs below are deigns I have chosen to describe and try to find improvements for. These design are part of our drone design that have come across as we were designing the drone. Many of these designs i have personally come up with thinking it would solve the main problem, and while it did , it also caused more problems as well. The five designs are also idea that the team has thought of incorporating into the final design which we will hope to have solved many of these bad designs.
Flying fish drone
This design will look similar to a cylinder shape body. There will be two props; one located at the end of the drone, which will be for aerial and underwater traveling. The middle prop of the drone to stabilize its hovering and to control the pitch of the drone underwater. There will be contractible wings with the main purpose to generate life. This is a bad design because the end prop is not exposed to a flow of water so it wont be able to propel itself in the water. Another bad design is the wings can not hold its form and are easily bent due to the origami design. there are some ideas to solve these bad designs. One is to have holds that lead to the back prop, while for the wings they must be fixed or rotatable. Because while the origami idea is useful when trying to save space , it is inefficient to create lift.
Product Structure
The electrical components of the drone will be the main focus when focusing on the components layout. The layout configuration is very important to the overall function of the drone. Drones have many electrical components that must be places in a way secure manor so that impacts on the drone do not lead to broken components or any electrical problems. The configuration will also determine the center of gravity for the drone.
To better plan a configuration, first a layout of the drone must me made to better understand and see the interactions between commonents and the physical body. Figure 1 demonstrates the architecture of commons and the connections between each components. The main architecture can be broken down into 5 subgroups, Underwater components, physical body, components located inside, Air components, and Communication systems. Figure 1 shows the connection between which components will interact with each other.
Components
Once a configuration was selected, the next focus was on the components need to make the drone function properly. There are many basic  components that are need for a drone fly. For this project there will be extra components so to make the drone go underwater as well as fly. Below are the components that we will be focusing on to make the drone function at a basic level. Future iterations may call for more component such as a camera or more
Air Propellers
The air propellers act as the wings to a drone. There are three different configurations, 2 blades, 3 blades, and 4 blades. As the number of blades increase the amount of thrust, but it will also use up more power as a draw back. The shape of the props determine the amount of thrust is able to produce. More surface area increase the trust capability. A larger propeller would also mean more energy need to be used. The pitch of the blades must also be taken into consideration as well. The flatter the pitch the easier it will be for the propeller to move in the air which in return will use less energy but also create less lift force. Many air propellers for drones are small and depend on the layout of the frame and overall size of the drone. The most common material used are composite plastics for lower end drones. This is due to its high resilience to high RPM (rotation per minute) as well as easy manufacturing. But higher end drones use fiberglass, or a mixture of composite materials and carbon fiber. These materials are able to withstand high RPMs which in return increase the max speeds and response time that the drone is able to reach.
Final Design
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This shows the final design that was chosen from all the other designs. This design is also o the third iterations. This design will most likely not stay the same through the end of the project. There will be changes to the design to better increase the efficiency.
Drone diving
What did I learn
Through this class I learned many things, some more useful then others. The main lessons I have learned have been through the senior design project itself. The idea of having the students work together for two full terms and let them have the ability to come up with solutions to problems that they themselves want to solve, is in my opinion the best way to make the students learn first hand how to develop engineering skills and to help them learn new way of thinking. There are principles that I was able to learn in class like brainstorming and how to efficiently develop a  fundamental decomposition. These have helped in better tackling design problems that may arise. The class itself is focus on the step by step process of creating a solution to a problem, then the steps need to manufacture the most optimal design available.Â
This has changed my philosophy on how to tackle engineering problems and how to think creatively by trying to not think of designs that already exists, but to think of designs that no one has thought of. This class has also taught me how to structure my designs, using morphological matrix and decomposition graphs. These two methods have helped me greatly in organizing my ideas and seeing what needs must be filled , instead of just
coming up with ransom ideas that may have many design flaws. Â
This new philosophy can be seen in our last chosen design which I made. With my understanding of bird bio mechanics I was able to incorporate the bird design and mix it with that of a drone. The main problem would be the props when it came in to the water. This was a major problem in many designs that came up in the group. I came up with a solution of having then fold into the drone. This will protect the drone props and reduce the surface are of impact. the drone will then unfold only the props to give the props a flow rate to push through the water, but to reduce the area exposed to the water and reduces drag. This solution came about by seeing what can get changed in the drone and what can not. The overall function of the drone was clear to many, but the sub functions kept being forgotten as the team focused on the main idea. The techniques learned in class helped with understanding what the needs we need to meet, and how every system in the drone can be used to increase the efficiency of the function. Â
The lessons I've learned in class will help me in future iterations of designs by keeping me organize, yet creative at the same time. Its this balance that is in my opinion that's the most important when trying to design an innovated solution to a problem
From the research project I was able to learn a lot of interesting things about drones. Through researching components, I was able to understand the working parts of a drone as well as the efficiency of the propellers and why factors such as size, shape, curve, and material can affect the drone flying. The project also faced a lot of changes from the beginning to the end. The class also went over engineering economics, and while it can be specifically applied to our project, due to the difficulty and uncertainty of many of the components, the information was still very valuable. In many project there will always be a cost, and it is very helpful to understand how the financial aspect of a project can affect the out come of the design. There were many components in the class that I never knew could affect the design of a product. This shed light on the topic of manufacturing that I never took interest until now. The class was very value in that sense and the project also forced me and many other people to be more hands on and to do independent research on a project of our choosing.