Helicopter Ingenuity Summary Draft 2

 In the publication, “Mars Helicopter Technology Demonstrator”, Balaram (2018) described the key attributes of the Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity. Ingenuity was designed as a prototype to determine whether powered flight is possible on Mars.

One of the key attributes mentioned by the author is the rotor system. The system consists of swashplates, propulsion & servo motors, Chinese weights, pitch links and dust boots, most of which are made with carbon fibre composites. The Chinese weights help to minimize torque conditions on swashplate actuators, each paired with an actuator power electronic. Due to the thin air in Mars's atmosphere, the bearings and swashplates are enclosed with seals and soft boots to ease dust accumulation. The rotor is designed to be rigid with a high flap frequency of more than 1.9/rev using a 1.21m diameter coaxial counter-rotating rotors with a rigid motor that has a rate of 2800rpm to provide lift for the helicopter.

References

J. (Bob) Balaram, Timothy Canham, Courtney Duncan, Matt Golombek, Håvard Fjær Grip, Wayne Johnson, Justin Maki, Amelia Quon, Ryan Stern, and David Zhu. (2018). Mars Helicopter Technology Demonstrator https://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/Publications/files/Balaram_AIAA2018_0023.pdf