Co-design of a multirotor UAV with robust control considering handling qualities and motor failure

Abstract

Over the last few decades, multirotor UAVs have become significantly popular because of their various applications. However, multirotors suffer from poor endurance performance as compared to other aircraft configurations with lifting surfaces. This limitation can be addressed by improving the technology of components or by developing design optimization approaches at the vehicle level. This paper presents a co-design approach for the multirotor structure and propulsive system to improve the vehicle's energetic efficiency while respecting dynamic performance requirements. For this purpose, the approach uses a bi-level formulation to optimize the design and control concurrently. The methodology offers the possibility to activate or not a passive fault tolerant strategy in the controller synthesis to be tolerant to single rotor failure. In contrast to conventional design approaches that sequentially design each part, the co-design approach leads to a better optimal solution by considering the interactions and couplings between design and control. With the proposed co-design approach, the results show the soundness of the proposed design methodology and a significant reduction in the consumed energy compared to a reference non-optimal design while maintaining the same requirements in terms of dynamic performance.