Abstract:

During the last decades enormous efforts and development attempts have been made regarding the research and expansion of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles due to their outstanding usefulness in a wide range of applications. Hexacopters have a stable flight behavior at high wind speeds and high load capacity. However, the most common problems arise when it leaves the nominal conditions (hover flight) or tries to perform aggressive maneuvers. The lack of horizontal force control makes it almost impossible to preside over the position independently from the vehicle’s attitude, limiting the possible control solutions. This is the reason why Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) combined with structural analysis regarding propellers behavior during hovering can help the designer to gather valuable information which, combined with different flight regimes, may contribute to appropriate control solutions. This work is focused on a practical combination of Computer Aided Engineering techniques that enforce traditional design of hexacopters. The aerodynamics of an improved hexacopter model is employed to demonstrate the efficiency of the new design strategy in product development. A study comprising three scenarios with different horizontal wind speeds is presented and remarks regarding the modeling and simulation procedures are included. The novelty of the work consists in the innovative solution of CFD parameter extraction to emerge data for the control system, as well as for the verification of the stability and maneuverability of the hexacopter.