Evaluation of Automatically Designed Micro Air Vehicles and Flight Testing D. Lundström * , K. Amadori † and P. Krus ‡ Linköping University, Linköping, 581 83, Sweden The presented work is centered on the evaluation of Micro or Mini Air Vehicles (MAV) that have been automatically designed and manufactured. An in-house developed design framework uses several coupled computer software’s to generate the geometric design in CAD, a well as list of off the shelf components for the propulsion system, and computer code for autonomous flight ready to upload in the intended autopilot. The paper describes the experiences made so far regarding automation of the design process and of manufacturing. Furthermore, it presents results from evaluation and analysis of the optimization algorithm and flight testing, and from continuing work with the framework to achieve deeper understanding of the process and to fine-tune the design automation performance. The flight data is correlated to the predicted performances to validate the models and design process. Nomenclature   Angle of attack CAD = Computer Aided Design COTS = Commercial Off The Shelf DDM = Direct Digital Manufacturing c L = Lift coefficient at given angle of attack  c di = Induced drag coefficient at given angle of attack  c m = Pitching moment coefficient at given angle of attack  c = Chord length E = Endurance FDM = Fused Deposition Modeling FEM = Finite Element Method I o = Electric motor zero load current K v = Electric motor Rpm constant PWM = Pulse Width Modeling R m = Electric motor internal resistance Rpm = Revolutions per minute W = Aircraft weight I. Introduction esign automation is of general interest in aeronautics, and automated methods for coupling aerodynamic calculations, CAD modeling, FEM analysis etc are getting are increasingly used in the design of manned aircraft, although primarily during the conceptual and preliminary design phases. Completely automating the design, from concept to production is, however, far from possible. Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) on the other hand are small, simple to build, and requires relatively few components. This is an application where fully automated design can be implemented. This can be regarded as a stepping stone from which design automation of more advanced vehicular systems can be developed. The ideal MAV design automation procedure is described in Figure 1. D * PhD Student, Dept of Management and Engineering, David.Lundstrom@liu.se, AIAA Student Member. † PhD Student, Dept of Management and Engineering, Kristian.Amadori@liu.se, AIAA Student Member. ‡ Professor, Dept of Management and Engineering, Petter.Krus@ liu.se. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 1