Question

Unmanned aerial vehicles also known as drones often need to be launched from places where a full-scale take-off runway is simply impossible to build. In those cases, a catapult is used to propel the drone into the air. In this problem, you will look at basic design requirements for a catapult that uses a loaded spring to launch a drone.

a) A drone of mass 4kg carrying a load of about 1kg needs to reach a take-off speed of 100km/h to begin its flight. The drone starts from rest. Compute the work required to accelerate this drone to its take off speed.

b) Assuming a catapult is used for the launch and that it uses a loaded spring to launch the drone, how much work will the spring perform on the drone to launch it. The ramp of the catapult is 4m long and its tilt angle with respect to the horizontal is 30°. (Neglect air resistance and friction).

c) Determine the spring constant that will be required to achieve the launch.

Answer 1