Using fully integrated design and simulation tools to reduce redesign time for unmanned aerial vehicles

Drones are big business

There is an ever-increasing demand for lighter and more technologically advanced unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for commercial and military applications. To capture a share of the market, producers need to take advantage of the latest tools to make their designs and finished products stand out.

Elytron Aeronautica specializes in the design and manufacture of UAVs. Although the company is headquartered in Italy, it works closely with partners in the U.S. and the U.K. so finding the right collaboration tools is essential to its success. In the early days of the company, Elytron Aeronautica was limited in how much it could collaborate with its partners since they were all using a diverse range of applications that made it difficult to develop an integrated process.

Better integration with NX

To overcome this, Elytron Aeronautica engaged with Siemens Digital Industries Software and its partner ATS Team3D, the Italian division of ATS Global. Together they evaluated a range of tools before settling on NX™ software.

"Elytron needed cutting-edge software that included simulation tools and would allow for data to be easily shared both internally and externally,” explains Antonio Martinelli, head of sales at ATS Team3D. “NX stood out in this respect, and we were confident it would enable better and faster design and manufacture.”

Marcello Delponte, head of engineering at Elytron Aeronautica, says that while the company now produces more than 90 percent of its components, that wasn’t always the case: “When we started out, we were collaborating with a German design firm. The fact they also used NX meant that exchanging information was very straight-forward. That was a huge help in the early days – being able to send files back and forth without having to edit them.

“We outsource our 3D printing to three different partners and occasionally a part will fail. For example, it could be because the gauges are too narrow. Without good integration, we could easily waste days manually updating all the parts and then checking they fit together correctly. But thanks to our workflows, we can quickly make the changes in NX and all the downstream processes are automatically updated.”

Optimizing investment with flexible licensing

As the company grew, it was able to invest in its technical expertise and manufacturing capability to design and produce most components in-house.

“The most interesting aspect was the composite part,” explains Delponte. “By combining NX with Fibersim and Simcenter, we were able to create a customized workflow that streamlined our structural analysis and made the entire development cycle much more efficient. The result of using these Siemens solutions is a small but formidable team of engineers can expertly analyze the design and manufacturing of our products.”

NX, the Fibersim™ portfolio and Simcenter™ software are part of the Siemens Xcelerator business platform of software, hardware and services.

As a small company, Elytron Aeronautica has taken advantage of Siemens’ flexible token licensing system to use the full range of software without a large financial investment. “It’s great that we can try out different applications from Siemens Xcelerator without committing to a longterm licensing deal,” says Delponte. “It helps us manage the changing demand for
licenses as priorities shift throughout the development cycle and allows us to experiment with each tool. For example, early in the design process we will focus on aerodynamic simulations and then we can swap those licenses for structural analysis or manufacturing applications.”

Continually growing and expanding capabilities

Flexible licensing will be a key element for Elytron Aeronautica as the company grows. It will allow them to gradually increase the range of applications and number of users without a large capital expenditure. “For now, we have the 3-axis milling capability, but we’re hoping to move to 5-axis in the future,” explains Delponte. “We’re also looking to add all the dynamics, super elements and nonlinear analysis to complete our simulation setup. The Siemens token licensing system will make it much more affordable for us to expand as demand grows.

“The support provided by ATS Team3D has been fantastic. They’ve helped us to understand which of the Siemens solutions are best for us and how to get the most out of them. And I’m sure they will continue to be a great asset as we continue to grow in the future.”