An Analytical Design Optimization Method for Electric Propulsion Systems of Multicopter UAVs with Desired Hovering Endurance
This addresses the inefficiency in multicopter propulsion system design for engineers and manufacturers, though it appears incremental as it simplifies and decouples existing optimization problems rather than introducing a new paradigm.
The paper tackles the problem of designing electric propulsion systems for multicopter UAVs by proposing an analytical optimization method to replace costly trial-and-error approaches, resulting in a practical tool that helps designers quickly determine optimal components based on given requirements.
Multicopters are becoming increasingly important in both civil and military fields. Currently, most multicopter propulsion systems are designed by experience and trial-and-error experiments, which are costly and ineffective. This paper proposes a simple and practical method to help designers find the optimal propulsion system according to the given design requirements. First, the modeling methods for four basic components of the propulsion system including propellers, motors, electric speed controls, and batteries are studied respectively. Secondly, the whole optimization design problem is simplified and decoupled into several sub-problems. By solving these sub-problems, the optimal parameters of each component can be obtained respectively. Finally, based on the obtained optimal component parameters, the optimal product of each component can be quickly located and determined from the corresponding database. Experiments and statistical analyses demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.