VerdeCommute VC-1

Summary

The VerdeCommute project builds off of related Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP) aircraft like the Electra Concept and the NASA X-57 Maxwell, utilizing VerdeGo's hybrid-electric powerplants. This project is in partial fullfillment of my Aerospace Engineering Bachelor's degree, serving as the first semester of my senior design project. I was the project lead, delegating tasks and keeping team members accountable. The following poster summarizes our project.

Current Status

Development of this aircraft stopped at the preliminary design stage. As the project lead, my role was multi-faceted. I had a hand in initial and detailed weight estimations, thrust model development, systems integration, and cost estimation. My main focus was on the thrust modeling, where I replicated the X-57's high lift propeller designs to maximize and estimate lift augmentation as a result of DEP. The MATLAB code I used to generate the propeller size, chord distribution, pitch distribution and location can be found here. The following slide describes how they were designed.