My Bixler UAV project

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 Hello everyone,

Today I am going to introduce my UAV Bixler project.

I bought this Bixler airplane from H.King about several months ago and wanted to put pixhawk in it to test how well it can fly autonomously.

After receiving the plane I searched the web to get any information about how to modify the plane. There are many DIY examples on such thing however most of them requires cutting the fuselage half or cutting the entire nose section. I think this is not a good idea because if the airplane suffer from crash, I have to do the same process again. 

So I decided to make a UAV module that fits into the cockpit section of the bixler. Luckily, the bixler has a cockpit like section where a model pilot sits and covered with clear plastic.

Finally I could get following result. A complete UAV cockpit module designed to fit into the Bixler plane.

This is rendering of the above 3d printed module

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Following video shows how this module can be assembled. 

All you need are pixhawk with pitot tube and a few M2, M3 sized screws. 

And this design is very helpful reducing the time to prepare for the flight mission.

Just put battery into the fuselage and snap tight the module. That's it.

If you are interested in making the UAV module yourself please order from shapeways!

Base parts here

http://shpws.me/P1iz

Cockpit cover parts here

http://shpws.me/P1iC

If you want to print yourself please give me a message and I will share printable stl file. 

Thanks,

xrotorsnet

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Comments

  • Looks really nice. Think about getting that pitot tube in clean air for best performance.  You may experience issues from turbulent air generated from the nose of the aircraft when yawing left.  Generally the pitot tube is either placed ahead of the nose or on the leading edge of the wing, far enough from any structure that would disturb the air entering the tube. 

  • Hi Marc,

    I choose bixler 1.1 because it has slightly smaller wing span that fits to my car's trunk. It looks like all Bixler series have similar shape, the UAV module might fit to those as well. 

    The profile of the nose section was not that complex. I measured the width of the base and height of the cockpit and draw very simple ellipsoid from the font to rear. 

    I sliced about 4~5 section and that's it. I think my module can also carry different FCs like you mentioned. 

    Thanks,

  • Brilliant work. I love it. How did you design that without cutting your bixler to get the profile shape? Please tell. I want to do something similar with a Bixler 3. Is there a reason you did not choose a bixler 3? My objective is to have easily swappable FCs in one plane (Ardupilot, iNav, and Paparazzi).
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