Facilities
Aeromodeling Lab
The Aeromodeling is a creative course , which has as main objective the design, building and flying of model airplanes or helicopters. These models can be scale copies of real airplanes or helicopters, or they are specially constructed aircraft models to take advantage of some flying characteristics like speed or duration of flight.
In the Aeromodeling lab, students design, fabricate and fly models. It not only gives a primary introduction to the world of aerodynamics, designing, electronics, engine technology, wood crafting and the technology of new materials but also provides a hands-on experience necessary for developing a practical aptitude.
Facilities
Variety of kits, engines, RC sets, prefabricated models available.
Autonomous Mini Helicopter Facility
Various UAV platforms designed and developed in Helicopter and MAV labWith the advancement in technology, ideas which existed only as science fiction, are becoming a reality. One such idea is the development of autonomous mini flying vehicle or Mini/ Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) no larger than a small bird. Accordingly, a lab focusing on the fundamentals of design, manufacturing and testing of systems and sub systems for a mini-helicopter is developed. Autonomous Mini-Helicopter which while weighing only a few kilograms incorporates most of the functions of a real life helicopter and achieves autonomous flight. This lab serves as a platform to test innovative ideas in the design, development, ground/flight testing of autonomous flying vehicle.
Focus Areas
Design and Development of avionics package (Sensing and actuation, Communication, Navigation, Automatic Flight Control and Ground Control) for autonomous flight of a mini Helicopter.
Flight Testing of autonomous Helicopter and expanding the utility by making the vehicle perform intelligent tasks.
Structural design and development of a mini helicopter, test bed for performance measurements, Control law design and validation.
Flight Laboratory
The flight laboratory is a unique national facility with three single engine airplanes: 1. Piper Super Cub - a two seater a/c, 2. Cessna Skylane - a four seater and 3. Piper Saratoga - a six seater.
The flight laboratory runs courses in flight testing wherein students participate to collect, analyze and evaluate performance and handling qualities of the airplanes. Such courses are also run for the Aerospace Engineering students of other institutes - IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur, IIt Madras, PEC Chandigarh and MIT Madras. Presently, under a project ARDB, selected students and faculty members are being imparted flying experience and opportunity to observe routines involved in various phases of flight, eg., take-off, climbing, landing, turning, etc. A project is also underway to instrument the six seater Saratoga airplane for on-board recording of aircraft motion and control variables and thereby make a variable quality flight data required for evaluation, etc. The flight laboratory also has several gliders and an active gliding center where students as well as any member of IIT community can become a member and aspire to reach the stage of getting his/her licence to fly the gliders.
Flight laboratory is actively involved in the research towards parameter estimation from flight data. Accordingly, the aircraft instrumentation is being upgraded. The expertise developed here are being shared with various aero agencies to contribute towards research and development in the field of flight testing.
High Speed Aerodynamics Lab
The High Speed Laboratory of the Aerospace Engineering Dept. of IIT Kanpur is well known for Research in the area of GAS DYNAMICS. It has gained National and International recognition through its considerable contribution to literature and projects of national importance.
The lab provides facilities in the areas of High Speed Jet Mixing and Acoustics, Supersonic Combustion and so on. In addition to catering to the needs of undergraduate and post-graduate laboratory course needs, it caters to the research requirements of a large number of Doctoral (PhD) and Master (MTech) students. Currently 7 doctoral students are doing their research in the lab. The lab is equipped with an indigenously built Jet Acoustic Chamber, which is unique in India
The lab also houses an intermittent, blowdown type supersonic wind tunnel. The tunnel is equipped with a dedicated computer system for tunnel control and data acquisition. This facility has already made substantial contribution in establishing new testing techniques and basic research in the area of transonic/supersonic flows.
Research Activities
- Gas Dynamics - experimental and theoretical investigation Rarefied flowsApplied Gas Dynamics and High speed jets
- Sudden expansion problems
- Aeroacoustics
- Active and passive control of jets and base flows
- Supersonic, Transonic and subsonic Aerodynamics
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Welcome Message
The Aerospace Engineering Department is more than 40 years old. Till 1991, it was known as Aeronautical Engineering Department. The name change was accompanied by addition of topics relating to spacecraft in the UG curriculum; some members of the faculty had been conducting research and guiding PG students in this area even before the formal alteration of the name in 1991. In matters of teaching, research & development, the department has always tried to strike a balance between hardware development and experiments on one hand...
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Prof. G. M. Kamath
Head, Department of Aerospace Engineering