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An improvement of flight performance in the level flight of tilted quadrotors by attaching a fixed-wing

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Abstract

Wide range information is required to be collected by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and the area for its take-off and landing is limited in the event of a disaster. Therefore, research on the development of a specific UAV, which has two functions of a long distance flight like a fixed-wing aircraft and of a hovering like a rotorcraft, is drawing attention recently. In this study, we focus on a hybrid tilted quadrotor, in which four rotors are tiltable and a wing is fixed. It is clarified, from a simulation comparison in a level flight mode, that the flight performance is effectively improved by adding a fixed-wing, where a tilted quadrotor is assumed to take a level flight by using a controller for a vertical-flight mode and by controlling the angles of some tiltable rotors. It is shown finally that adding a fixed-wing can save the rotor thrust about 77% per flight distance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan

    Yoshikazu Nakamura, Atsushi Arakawa, Keigo Watanabe & Isaku Nagai

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  1. Yoshikazu Nakamura
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  2. Atsushi Arakawa
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  3. Keigo Watanabe
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  4. Isaku Nagai
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Correspondence to Yoshikazu Nakamura.

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Nakamura, Y., Arakawa, A., Watanabe, K. et al. An improvement of flight performance in the level flight of tilted quadrotors by attaching a fixed-wing. Artif Life Robotics 24, 396–403 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-018-0519-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-018-0519-x

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