Overview
Skrunners is a campus autonomous drone delivery team operating under Stanford Student Robotics. As Aerodynamics Lead and Systems Integration Engineer, I am responsible for the aerodynamic design of the delivery UAV and the physical interfaces between the airframe, payload system, and ground infrastructure.
Airframe Design
I CADed a blended-fuselage fixed-wing UAV sized to carry campus delivery payloads within the team’s packaging constraints. The blended fuselage reduces wetted area and smooths the transition between the payload bay and lifting surfaces compared to a conventional tube-and-wing layout.
Key design considerations:
- Packaging the payload bay, battery, and avionics within the fuselage volume while maintaining acceptable CG travel across payload states
- Wing planform and airfoil selection balancing cruise efficiency with low-speed handling for autonomous takeoff/landing
- Structural layout for 3D printing and composite spar integration
CFD & Stability Analysis
To accelerate the design loop without full CFD on every iteration, I applied a physics-informed inference model that uses a small set of CFD-evaluated anchor points combined with analytical thin-airfoil and lifting-line theory to predict:
- Static stability derivatives (Cmα, Clβ) across the design space
- Dynamic stability modes (phugoid, short-period, Dutch roll) from inferred aerodynamic coefficients
- Drag polar across the operating envelope
This hybrid approach delivers reliable stability estimates at a fraction of the computational cost of running full CFD on every geometry variant.
Payload & Vertiport Interface
I designed the payload interface for reliable pickup and dropoff — a bottom-mounted bay with a latched door actuated by a servo, sized for the team’s standardized delivery container. The vertiport interface defines the alignment guides, locking mechanism, and electrical contacts for autonomous charging between flights.