One billion people in the world do not have access to roads year-round, and therefore do not have access to medical supplies. SIMULIA was inspired by a Ted Talk[SS1] delivered by Andreas Raptopoulous of Matternet that outlined this pressing issue, and his solution to the problem using autonomous flying vehicles, or drones. So, we asked ourselves the question, Could we redesign an existing quadcopter platform to help deliver medical supplies using the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform? We set the following requirements: the quadcopter would have to carry a half-kilogram payload for at least 30 minutes for less than one dollar per flight. We used the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform to focus on three phases of our adaptive design: conceptual design, detailed design, and design for manufacturing.
An optimized rotor/motor/battery design is the number one driver of quadcopter design, so we chose to design an optimized rotor blade to retrofit the baseline with a matching electric motor. Using a potential flow code to analyze a number of rotor/motor combinations, we were able to limit ourselves to five optimal combinations. Using Results Analytics, SIMULIA’s advanced analytics and decision support tool, we were able to effectively weigh the tradeoffs between each of the combinations’ mission duration, cost, and maneuverability and decide on a final configuration. We used a 3D printer to rapidly create a physical prototype of our optimized rotor.
To design the gripper mechanism, we used SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual, a lifelike design environment with direct modeling capabilities, to quickly create an initial kinematic model. Once the kinematic model met the requirements for operation, a 3D model was created from the initial 2D sketch. The design was then used in Product Design Simulation, SIMULIA’s designer structural application, where stress and displacement were analyzed to ensure the gripper could endure its operating environment. Once the design was modified to meet the stress requirements, the model was created using a 3D printer and test in the field.
Next was the detailed design phase. We had to guarantee the rotor arms could bear operational loads and that the quadcopter was durable enough to withstand a number of flights and even crashes. Using Process Composer, SIMULIA’s process integration tool, our automatically parameterized model was modified using a Design of Experiment approach. Process Composer was also used to setup various configurations for drop simulations to ensure performance during off-design landings. These implicit static loading analyses, explicit drop analyses, and FE-Safe’s fatigue evaluations showed us that our quadcopter was now efficient and durable.
Lastly was design for manufacturability. It is not enough to imagine, verify, and validate a great design; we also have to build it! The original arm bracket had not been optimized for load bearing. Using TOSCA, SIMULIA’s non-parametric optimization tool, we performed a topology optimization to minimize compliance while enforcing a de-molding constraint. After modifying the design, we were able to increase the stiffness and ensure manufacturability.
The re-designed quadcopter was then brought on stage by some of the engineers who brought the design to life. They were able to take it off, release the medical supplies, and land successfully in front of the more than 700 people in the audience. Using the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, we were able to take a product, through the conceptual, detailed, and design for manufacturing phases of product design all within one single platform. We used numerous tools, collected and reused volumes of data, and integrated many different engineering and decision making roles in the process all within the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform.
[SS1]Attached Link to the Ted talk
