Magnus-Effect Winged Hybrid UAV System: Improved Energy Efficient and Autonomy Through Control Allocation Strategy

While multirotor unmanned aerial vehicles have excellent maneuverability, they lack the ability to perform long-endurance flights. Many design-based approaches to addressing this drawback exist. To overcome this challenge, this article proposes the Magnus-effect winged quadcopter system design. We u...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on aerospace and electronic systems pp. 1 - 20
Main Authors Azaki, Zakeye, Dumon, Jonathan, Offermann, Alexis, Meslem, Nacim, Susbielle, Pierre, Negre, Amaury, Hably, Ahmad
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 19.09.2024
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Subjects
Actuators
Aerodynamics
Atmospheric modeling
Autonomous aerial vehicles
Control allocation
Engineering Sciences
hybrid UAV
Magnus effect technology
nonlinear modeling
Quadrotors
Rotors
Vectors
hybrid UAV
Magnus effect technology
nonlinear modeling
Control allocation
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Summary:While multirotor unmanned aerial vehicles have excellent maneuverability, they lack the ability to perform long-endurance flights. Many design-based approaches to addressing this drawback exist. To overcome this challenge, this article proposes the Magnus-effect winged quadcopter system design. We use the rotational speed of the Magnus-effect based wings in this system as a control variable to maximize the contribution from these wings, thus minimizing the necessary and required thrust from the quadcopter and, therefore, the system's energy consumption. To this end, we developed an airspeed-dependent nonlinear optimization control allocation scheme to operate the system at a wide range of airspeeds. Realistic simulations and outdoor experiments validate the approach, demonstrating the superior energy efficiency of the Magnus-based quadcopter system compared to traditional quadcopter and emphasizing its potential for achieving extended endurance.
ISSN:0018-9251
1557-9603
DOI:10.1109/TAES.2024.3464569