Post by Rajat Bobde

From concept development to quantitative aerodynamic analysis—turning an idea into a fully functional experimental research platform. This video captures the complete journey of my M.Tech research at DIAT-DRDO in collaboration with CSIR-NAL, where I investigated aerodynamic interactions in tilt-rotor and tilt-wing VTOL configurations. The project evolved through multiple phases of design, development, experimentation, and analysis. 🔹 Developed a wooden demonstration model to validate the tilt-rotor concept and evaluate the overall mechanism. 🔹 Designed and fabricated a standalone tilt-rotor experimental setup based on a C-channel and lever-arm mechanism to characterize rotor aerodynamic performance across different tilt angles, RPMs, and freestream velocities. 🔹 Designed and developed a tilt rotor–wing integrated experimental setup using a four-bar linkage mechanism to investigate rotor-wing aerodynamic interactions representative of VTOL flight. 🔹 Developed Arduino-based control programming for rotor speed and tilt actuation and integrated the setup with an NI data acquisition system to record synchronized six-component force and moment measurements during wind tunnel testing. 🔹 Performed Python-based post-processing and analysis of the acquired experimental data, converting raw measurements into aerodynamic coefficients and performance parameters for quantitative evaluation. 🔹 Conducted wind tunnel experiments over a wide range of operating conditions to investigate the aerodynamic characteristics of the integrated tilt rotor-wing configuration. 🔹 Applied tuft flow visualization to study the qualitative flow behavior around the rotor-wing configuration. These flow patterns were correlated with quantitative aerodynamic measurements, providing deeper insight into rotor-wing interactions and validating the experimental findings. This project represents a complete engineering and research workflow—from concept development and mechanical design to prototype fabrication, instrumentation, programming, wind tunnel experimentation, data acquisition, flow visualization, and quantitative aerodynamic analysis. I am sincerely grateful to my supervisors, DIAT-DRDO, and CSIR-NAL for their invaluable guidance and for providing access to world-class experimental facilities throughout this research journey. Engineering is not just about building prototypes—it's about transforming ideas into validated scientific knowledge. #AerospaceEngineering #ExperimentalAerodynamics #VTOL #TiltRotor #RotorWingInteraction #WindTunnelTesting #DataAcquisition #Python #Arduino #FlowVisualization #TuftFlowVisualization #UAV #Research #CSIRNAL #DIAT #Engineering #Aerodynamics

Video Content