An Overview of the Sydney Propulsion Lab at The University of Sydney

Rens MacNeill
The University of Sydney

In this presentation, an overview of the Sydney Propulsion Lab at The University of Sydney will be given. The Sydney Propulsion lab is led by Dr. Dries Verstraete, and is part of the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering (AMME). The major research focuses at the Sydney Propulsion Lab include hydrogen fuel-cell hybrid and triple hybrid fuel-cell based power for UAS, electric motor, battery and speed controller testing, propeller design and optimization, low Reynolds number aerodynamic research; and the analysis of low speed handling qualities and flight control of hypersonic vehicles. Following this, an overview will be given of recent work conducted by Rens MacNeill, a Ph.D. candidate under Dr. Dries Verstraete at The University of Sydney. Rens’ recent work has been focused on the development and validation of an aeroelastic rotor design and analysis tool, with a view towards passively variable twist propellers for small tactical UAS.


About the speaker...

Rens MacNeill graduated with a Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering with First Class Honours in 2014 from The University of Sydney, Australia. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at The University of Sydney, focusing on variable-twist propeller systems for small unmanned aircraft. His research interest include propellers, electric and combustion-based propulsion systems, and more generally, unmanned aerial systems.