Performance Evaluation of an H-VTOL Aircraft with Distributed Electric Propulsion and Ducted-Fans Using MIL Simulation

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of increasing the energy efficiency of a hybrid vertical take-off and landing aircraft. To this end, an innovative aerial vehicle was developed, featuring a distributed electrical propulsion system with ducted-fan rotors. To compare and analyze the effectiveness of the proposed propulsion system, two configurations with a different number of ducted-fan rotors were examined: a four-rotor configuration and a six-rotor configuration. The mathematical model of the four-rotor configuration was derived using the Newton–Euler formalism, allowing the design and implementation of a control strategy for conducting model-in-the-loop simulations. These simulations enabled the evaluation and analysis of the performance of the proposed propulsion system, where the numerical results demonstrated the functionality of both designs and showed that, during the multirotor flight, the configuration with six rotors increased its energy efficiency by up to 11%, providing higher vertical lift with the same power consumption. This was achieved by distributing its weight among a higher number of engines. The incorporation of two additional ducted fans increased the weight and the drag of the six-rotor configuration, resulting in a low augmentation in power consumption of 1%. Finally, this caused a decrease in airspeed by up to 4% during the cruise speed phase.