**Figure 14.**

*Laser distance sensor system installed inside the body. (a) Mounting location of the laser distance sensor; (b) Laser distance sensor system.*

#### **Figure 15.**

*Load applied to the actuator section (by steering angle and wind speed).*

such a state and there was a risk of damage to the blade due to fatigue, the aileron drive experiment with the DEA was carried out at a wind speed of 0 m/s to 30 m/s. In order to steer 20 degrees in this environment, a DEA that can obtain a force of about 8.7 kg/f is required.


**Table 1.**

*Load applied to the actuator section at each wind speed when the rudder angle is 20 deg.*

#### **3.3 Aileron drive experiment with a DEA**

The load cell mounted for load measurement was replaced with a diaphragm type DEA, and an aileron drive experiment was conducted. **Figure 16** shows the state of the DEA mounting.

The DEA unit used had a donut shape with an outer diameter of φ100 mm, a DEA part with an outer diameter of φ80 mm, and a central part of φ50 mm (see **Figure 15a**). The DEA used a 3 M acrylic sheet (VHB4910) as the main elastomer and SWCNT (SG101) manufactured by Zeon Corporation as the main electrode material. This DEA unit had a displacement performance of 2.0 mm with an applied voltage of DC 3.2 kV under a load of 4.0 kg, and the drive time at this time was about 100 ms. The DEA was driven by a high voltage power supply and a high voltage switch located outside the wind tunnel. The high-voltage power supply installed outside the wind tunnel and the DEA installed in the enclosure are connected by a high-voltage cable with a length of about 6 m. However, due to the low current consumption of the DEA, the maximum voltage drop during driving is 100 V, which is within the range where there is no problem in driving the DEA. The DEA unit consists of four cartridges, and if one of the DEA cartridges fails, the remaining DEA cartridges can drive it.

In this experiment, the wind speed was changed from 0 m/s to 20 m/s every 5 m/s, and the change in wind speed at each wind speed was recorded with a video camera installed on the ceiling of the wind tunnel. The rudder angle was measured by analyzing the recorded video.

In the initial experimental plan, the angle of attack was planned to be changed from −10° to +10° in 5° increments, but the stress applied to the wing was greater than expected, so there was a risk of damage to the skeleton. In order to avoid such an outcome, this time, the angle of attack was set to 0° only, and the wind speed was changed from 0 to 20 m/s at 5 m/s intervals.

**183**

**Figure 18.**

**Figure 17.**

*Aileron displacements at applied voltage DC3,200 V.*

*Aileron drive speed when there is no wind.*

*The Challenge of Controlling a Small Mars Plane DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95507*

**Table 2** shows the aileron angle at each wind speed. **Figure 17** shows the aileron displacement at each wind speed [6]. Up to a wind speed of 5 m/s, the aileron angle could be obtained up to 20 deg. However, the aileron angle gradually decreased from a wind speed of 10 m/s and reached 4 deg. at a wind speed of 15 m/s.

**Figure 18** shows the aileron drive speed when there is no wind, as measured in the lab. The rudder angle could be moved up to 20° at a speed of about 100 ms, and the same rudder angle and speed could be reproduced even if the drive control was

Aileron angle (deg.) 20 20 9 4 0

**Wind speed (m/s) 0 5 10 15 20**

**4. Results and discussion**

repeated.

**Table 2.**

*Aileron angle at each wind speed.*

**Figure 16.** *DEA mounted in the body. (a) Diaphragm type DEA. (b) DEA built into the body.*

*The Challenge of Controlling a Small Mars Plane DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95507*
