A user-friendly method for small UAV sizing and performance estimate
Creators: name:  Y. JING 
name:   P. HENDRICK 
Publisher: name: Proceedings of  the 9th European Conference for Aerospace Sciences. Lille, France, 27 June - 1 July, 2022
Year: 2022
Subjects: UAV
FUTURE APPLICATIONS
UAV SERVICES
UAV SPECIFIC TECHNOLOGIES

description: Abstract In recent years, the application domain of small drones is expanding, such as in agriculture, express transport, surveillance, aerial photography, etc. [1] [2]. The first step in drone manufacturing is its design. Given that the drone maximum takeoff weight and the weight of each component affect each other [3], the selection of components usually require repeated calculations or is just based on large experience with previous designs. The aim of this work is to implement respectively a program for fixed-wing UAVs and for quadcopters weighing less than 15 kg. This program enables to calculate the payload margin of a drone, the parameters of each component as well as the power consumed for each phase according to takeoff weight. It may also estimate the recommended takeoff weight quickly based on fixed payload and flight time (endurance). Although the fixed-wing drone modeling and quadcopter modeling are different, their approaches remain the same. It is here assumed that the drones initial weight is 2 kg (as an example). By calculating its necessary power for each phase, we choose the components in sequence: the structure, the battery, the propeller, the motor, the ESC and the wiring, composing the empty weight, then we model each component and implement them in a Python code to obtain the remaining payload. Another way to use this program is to impose a payload and to use the iterative method in order to obtain the most appropriate takeoff weight (Figure 1). Finally, the reliability of this method is checked by comparing the modeling results with the parameters of the Skywalker X7, DJI Phantom4 Pro, etc. The results show that the performance of drones is closely related to the energy density of the battery: the higher the energy density of the battery the greater the endurance and the payload capacity (Figure2). In addition, with the same weight and flight time, the payload capacity of the fixed-wing UAVs is much larger than those of the quadcopters (Figure 3). The drone main weight contributor comes from its structure, which represents about 55% of its total weight, as for a quadcopter drone, the propulsion part is the heaviest, where it is about 60% of the total weight, as it consumes more power to sustain flight compared to fixed-wing systems [4]. This user-friendly sizing program may not only save design time and cost, but also find the relationship between various parameters and their influence on the drones performance. In the design process, this estimation method provides quite small errors, and it could make estimation results more accurate and reasonable. The Python code will be detailed in the full paper. References [1] S. Dubois, Y. Vanhellemont and M. De Bouw (CSTC), \"Les drones au service de la construction\", CSTC Monographies N33, pages 9-10, August 2019. [2] J.M. McMichael, M.S. Francis, \"Micro air vehicles toward a new generation of flight\", USAF, DARPA TTO document, July 1996. [3] A. Essari, \"Estimation of component design weights in conceptual design phase for tactical UAVs\", First Conference for Engineering Sciences and Technology (CEST- 2018), 25-27 September 2018, Libya. [4] Y. Tian and W. Jiang, \"Fixed-wing and electric multi-rotor composite aircraft\", U.S. Patent Application 13/704,056[P],2013-4-18.