Performance Analysis of Fully Actuated Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Configurations with Passively Tilted Rotors

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) nowadays represent an interesting tool capable of performing various missions. The multirotor type of UAV is proven to be a potential solution in missions that require precise movements, such as environmental objects manipulation. In this paper, a procedure for the performance analysis of fully actuated multirotor UAV configurations is proposed. For this purpose, a configuration is described by a control allocation scheme and implemented in the software package which enables the analysis and control implementation of a real system. The parameter analysis of the passively tilted multirotor configurations is performed based on the characteristics of the electric propulsion units, and the allocation of propulsion forces is graphically shown. The results of the proposed procedure provide an insight into the capabilities of configurations and can ultimately be used to select the propulsion system components and parameters according to the requirements and constraints associated with the specific mission profile. An experimental aircraft was built, and custom firmware was created, which enable us to experimentally prove the feasibility of fully actuated and passively tilted configurations.