MAVDEM Project Activities

Simplified Gantt Chart

Preliminary Design Phase until the Preliminary Design Review (PDR)

Critical Design Phase until the Critical Design Review (CDR)

System Built and Integration Phase

Flight Tests and Evaluation Phase

Project duration extension

A 6 months extension of the duration of the project has been obtained.

A new duration extension is under consideration.
The new end date is now December 31, 2009 (to be confirmed).

System current status

Vehicle configuration
The vehicle configuration has been selected during the CDR: the 4-rotor configuration has been chosen.

Ground Control Station
The GCS has been defined from hardware and software points of view.
Its purpose is to enable the operator to set up the flight plan and eventually to manually control the vehicle, but also to display the images taken by the onboard video camera.

Vehicle structure and onboard components
The system components have been selected, mainly between commercially available elements (motors, data link, video camera...).
The guidance, navigation and control and the embedded software have been developed by the project partners.
Two prototypes have been integrated and integration tests are currently performed in order to check that all the subcomponents work properly.

Vehicle control system setting and tuning
The vehicle control system tuning is under progress.
The MAVDEM team is experiencing difficulties in the full integration of the GNC system. This is inducing delays in the project.

Configuration selection process

The configuration selection process started with the widest spectrum of candidate solutions.
More than 20 concepts have been idendified.
Several multicriteria analyses led to the final choice of the prototype configuration during the CDR.

Meetings

March 24, 2009 - Steering Committee Meeting

A steering comittee meeting has been held in Toulouse, France, in the Onera facilities on March 24, 2009.

April 2&3, 2008 - Progress Meeting #5

The Progress Meeting #5 has been held in La Spezia, Italy, in the Oto Melara facilities on April 2&3, 2008.

A partners meeting has been organized on April 1, 2008.

The progress of the work has been presented and a new planning for the prototypes tests has been proposed.

October 23&24, 2007 - Progress Meeting #4

The Progress Meeting #4 has been held in Salon de Provence, France, by ONERA on October 23&24, 2007.

A partners meeting has been organized on October 22, 2007.

The progress of the work has been presented and the integration and test planning has been defined.

March 29&30, 2007 - Critical Design Review

The Critical Design Review (CDR) has been held in Tres Cantos, held by SENER, on March 29&30, 2007.

A partners meeting was organized on March 28, 2007.

Purposes of the CDR:

to present the progress of the work

to choose the final configuration, which will be built and tested in flight during the next phases.

Sept. 7&8, 2006 - Preliminary Design Review

The Preliminary Design Review (PDR) has been held in Kongsberg (Norway), hosted by TELLMIE, on September 7th & 8th, 2006.

Purposes of the meeting:

to discuss the management report

to present the progress of the work

to choose 2 candidate configurations to be designed in details until the PDR. These 2 configurations will then be compared and the best one will be built as a demonstrator.

The main conclusions of the meeting are:

the 2 last configurations have been chosen and their design has started

the management report has been validated by the TAMG

the Progress Report has been officially accepted by the TAMG

the consortium should start as soon as possible to build and test some sub-systems

Jun. 29, 2006 - Extra meeting

As official progress meeting are only every 6 months, the consortium has organized 2 teleconference and 1 extra "physical" meeting in Tres Cantos (Spain), in SENER facilities, on June 29th, 2006.

The purpose of these meeting+teleconferences was to discuss technical and management issues, as well as to update the ongoing actions.

Mar. 1, 2006 - First Progress Meeting

The first MAVDEM Progress Meeting has been held in La Spezia (Italy), in the OTO MELARA facilities, on March 1st, 2006.

The main conclusions of this meeting are:

the project is on schedule

the next 6 months will be the most important for this project

the Progress Report has been officially accepted by the TAMG

Sept. 8, 2005 - Kick-Off Meeting

MAVDEM Project's official start has been announced during the kick-off meeting that was held in Paris (France), at the ONERA Châtillon, on September 08 2005.

MAVDEM is a 3 years ongoing project and is originally scheduled to be ending on September 2008.

This part of the website will be updated on a regular basis, according to the project's progress.