Hovercraft Design Project

Overview:

This hovercraft was designed for an aerospace engineering class project.  My team was tasked with designing an agile craft, capable of lifting a variable payload, and maneuvering quickly over hard flooring and carpet.  The vehicle hovers by pressurizing its hollow shell, forming a pocket of air to float on.  Propulsion comes from a forward mounted fan which can vector its thrust to turn.  A pilot is used to fly the hovercraft and is assisted by a computer to stabilize the craft's spin.     

Controls:

The flight computer uses a proportional controller to nullify all yawing.  This is done in two parts. First, a tuned effort proportional to the lift fan power is used to counter the torque of the lift fan on the vehicle.  Secondly, an effort that is proportional to the crafts instantaneous yaw rate is calculated.  These two control efforts are then summed together along with the user input and then decomposed into a throttle and motor angle command.  The result is a vehicle that resists yawing caused by disturbances while responding to user input.

Structure:

The vehicle's overall design driver was weight.   Multiple rounds of CFD produced a final shell configuration with the smallest weight that could still lift the vehicle's own weight.  Other structural components including the motor mount and cameral mount were designed as minimal trusses to reduce weight.    

Shown above is a CFD analysis used to determine the shell's pressurized lift force.  

CAD renderings of the hovercraft done in Solidworks.