Passive stability of a single actuator micro aerial vehicle

In this work, we present a low-cost, flying research MAV, comparable to common quadcopter platforms. We propose a flyer with only two moving parts (a rotor and a stator) and a single actuator that is capable of hovering flight without active attitude control. The passive stability is analyzed and reduced to two mechanisms that are a function of the relative offset of the center of pressure and center of mass, the angular momentum of rotor and stator and the differential lift of the spinning elements. The design space over these parameters is explored with a dozen models that are unstable and one that is stable. Interestingly, the two stability mechanisms are not compatible requiring opposing design emphasis. Passive stability of this model is verified by Routh Hurwitz criterion, in simulation and a physical prototype. The vehicle has the added benefits of low complexity and favorable size scaling compared to other MAVs. The vehicle design guidelines derived from both theory and experimentation are presented.