UAV Control in Close Proximities - Ceiling Effect on Battery Lifetime
This addresses battery efficiency for UAVs in interactive missions, but it is incremental as it applies an existing method to a new phenomenon.
The study tackled the problem of battery lifetime degradation in UAVs during close-proximity flights by analyzing the ceiling effect, finding that it can reduce cycling-related battery degradation by 15.77%.
With the recent developments in the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), it is expected them to interact and collaborate with their surrounding objects, other robots and people in order to wisely plan and execute particular tasks. Although these interaction operations are inherently challenging as compared to free-flight missions, they might bring diverse advantages. One of them is their basic aerodynamic interaction during the flight in close proximities which can result in a reduction of the controller effort. In this study, by collecting real-time data, we have observed that the current drawn by the battery can be decreased while flying very close to the surroundings with the help of the ceiling effect. For the first time, this phenomenon is analyzed in terms of battery lifetime degradation by using a simple full equivalent cycle counting method. Results show that cycling related effect on battery degradation can be reduced by a 15.77% if the UAV can utilize ceiling effect.