An improvement of flight performance in the level flight of tilted quadrotors by attaching a fixed-wing

Abstract

Wide range information is required to be collected by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and the area for its take-off and landing is limited in the event of a disaster. Therefore, research on the development of a specific UAV, which has two functions of a long distance flight like a fixed-wing aircraft and of a hovering like a rotorcraft, is drawing attention recently. In this study, we focus on a hybrid tilted quadrotor, in which four rotors are tiltable and a wing is fixed. It is clarified, from a simulation comparison in a level flight mode, that the flight performance is effectively improved by adding a fixed-wing, where a tilted quadrotor is assumed to take a level flight by using a controller for a vertical-flight mode and by controlling the angles of some tiltable rotors. It is shown finally that adding a fixed-wing can save the rotor thrust about 77% per flight distance.