Abstract
In this paper, the aerodynamic performance of a Hex-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with different rotational speeds (1500–2300 RPM) considering the horizontal airflow conditions is analyzed by both simulations and experiments. A low-speed wind tunnel experiments platform is applied to measure the thrust, torque, and power consumption of a Hex-rotor UAV with different rotational speeds in horizontal airflow, which varied from 0 m/s–4 m/s. First, this paper introduces the effect of horizontal airflow on a UAV. Then, the low-speed wind tunnel experiments were carried out on a Hex-rotor UAV (D/L = 0.56) with different horizontal velocities to determine the hover performance. Finally, numerical simulations were obtained with the streamline distributions, pressure distributions, velocity contour, and vortex distributions at different horizontal airflow conditions to describe the aerodynamic interference effect of different horizontal airflows. Combined with the experimental results and numerical simulations results, the horizontal airflow proved to have a significant influence on the aerodynamic performance of the Hex-rotor UAV with an increase in thrust and power. Indeed, the streamlines in the flow field were coupled to each other at the presence of the incoming airflow. Especially when the incoming airflow was larger, the Hex-rotor UAV could properly use low-speed flight to maintain high power loading. Finally, it is inferred that the aerodynamic performance of the Hex-rotor UAV is also related to the movement and deformation of the vortex at the tip of the rotor.
Highlights
A Hex-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is designed with the advantages of a simple structure, a stable system, and strong flight adaptability, which has wide civil and military applications [1,2,3,4,5,6].Considering the manipulation of the Hex-rotor UAV, the horizontal movement can only change the rotational speed of the different rotors of the Hex-rotor UAV through a controller, thereby completing tasks such as acceleration and hovering
As the key parameters to analyze the hover efficiency of the Hex-rotor UAV, the thrust and power
The power presented an opposite trend. This is because the interference between the rotors is much stronger when the horizontal airflow is introduced, which may Results improve the aerodynamic performance by increasing thrust and decreasing power
Summary
A Hex-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is designed with the advantages of a simple structure, a stable system, and strong flight adaptability, which has wide civil and military applications [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The external airflow disturbance and the mutual interference between the rotors affects the aerodynamic performance of the Hex-rotor UAV. When the horizontal airflow is introduced, the incoming airflow will interfere with the aerodynamic characteristics between the adjacent rotors, making the flow field of the Hex-rotor UAV more complicated, affecting the stability and reliability of the Hex-rotor UAV. Zhuo et al performed attitude control on the Hex-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) [10]. Lei et al studied the aerodynamic performance of a non-planar Quadrotor UAV [17]. The aerodynamics of a Hex-rotor UAV under external airflow and rotor interference have not yet been studied. It is necessary to study the aerodynamic characteristics of the Hex-rotor UAV considering the horizontal wind effect.
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