UAV Engines who design, develop and manufacture Wankel-type engines for the propulsion of small and medium sized Unmanned Air Vehicles, have reduced development time by more than 50 percent since investing in SolidWorks 3D CAD.

To design lightweight, efficient and durable engines to carry unmanned surveillance aircraft into harsh environments. In 2D, optimizing the power-to-weight ratio was limited by the constant re-work and endless number of drawings required to see different configurations. The process took too much time and often forced engineers to correct errors from one drawing to the next.

The company evaluated Solid Edge and Pro/ENGINEER, but standardised on SolidWorks CAD software and SolidWorks Simulation design analysis software to better visualise how to reduce the number of components, and therefore the weight of the engine, while increasing performance.

• Reduced the number of components in each engine to around 300
• Reduced new engine design from two years to less than a year
• Designed better performing engines that can carry aircraft farther and through harsher environments than those designed in 2D
• SolidWorks eDrawings improved design communication with customers