Literature Review 1
My current search methodology to find this existing research is to search Goolgle Scholar using search terms such as “electric ducted fan thrust vector control”
Much of the existing research into ducted fans is targeted at drones, UAVs and experimental electric aircraft.
Here are some papers I found that seemed the most relevant to my exploration into ducted fan thrust vecotr control systems for use in robotics:
Design and Full-Pose Control of a Ducted Fan Aerial Robot with Dual-Axis Gimbaled Thrust-Vectoring Mechanisms describes an aerial robot with gimbaled ducted fans instead of classic rotors to create a 6DoF thrust vector control system. The paper describes the use of “Lyapunov-based control” which looks complex and may be beyond the scope of my 12 week project, from my current understanding this refers to a mechanism used to find a stable point that may only be relevant to flying craft/robots (although this video by Professor Giordano Scarciotti on YouTube does provide a seemingly good visualisation that I may return to if understanding of this becomes relevant to me).
Experimental Investigation and Performance Evaluation of an Electric Ducted Fan (EDF) for Distributed Propulsion Systems Looks like it may be relevent to me as it mentions the building of a test rig “was used to characterize the relationships between the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) control input and the primary performance outputs, including fan rotational speed (RPM), static thrust, and electrical power consumption.” However, I only have access to the abstract for this paper, I'll need to check with the university to see if I can get access to it.
# Development of a One Axis Thrust Vectoring Control System Demonstrator with Electric Ducted Fan Seems like a good candidate to be looked into more deeply, this paper describes a single degree of freedom test rig for a ducted fan system being used to model thrust vector control for spacecraft in an atmospheric environment. The test rig described in this paper specifically tests the pitch rotational axis, somewhat different to the initial idea I have in mind for a linear test rig
SkateDuct: Utilizing Vector Thrust of Ducted Fan UAVs for Terrestrial-Aerial Locomotion Seemingkly describes a turtlebot-like robot that uses a ducted fan for short flight capabilities, enabling it to hop over small obstacles. Interestingly, directed air currents from the single ducted fan are also used for ground-based propulsion/locomotion.
Other notable things
Jet-HR2: A Flying Bipedal Robot Based on Thrust Vector Control Describes the use of a ducted fan to enhance the capabilities of a disaster response robot, allowing it to perform long or high jumps. This probably isn't all that relevant to my research but it is cool