エネルギー源の段階投棄でマルチロータUAVの飛行時間を延長
Staging energy sources to extend flight time of a multirotor UAV
使用済みのバッテリー段を飛行中に投棄して機体質量を減らし、マルチロータの飛行時間を延ばす段階的エネルギー供給の解析と実験を行い、2段構成で19%の飛行時間増を実証した。
著者: Karan P. Jain, Jerry Tang, Koushil Sreenath, Mark W. Mueller
分類: eess.SY, cs.RO, cs.SY, math.OC
原文アブストラクト
Energy sources such as batteries do not decrease in mass after consumption, unlike combustion-based fuels. We present the concept of staging energy sources, i.e. consuming energy in stages and ejecting used stages, to progressively reduce the mass of aerial vehicles in-flight which reduces power consumption, and consequently increases flight time. A flight time vs. energy storage mass analysis is presented to show the endurance benefit of staging to multirotors. We consider two specific problems in discrete staging -- optimal order of staging given a certain number of energy sources, and optimal partitioning of a given energy storage mass budget into a given number of stages. We then derive results for two continuously staged cases -- an internal combustion engine driving propellers and a rocket engine. Notably, we show that a multicopter powered by internal combustion has an upper limit on achievable flight time independent of the available fuel mass, but no such limit exists for rocket propulsion. Lastly, we validate the analysis with flight experiments on a custom two-stage battery-powered quadcopter. This quadcopter can eject a battery stage after consumption in-flight using a custom-designed mechanism, and continue hovering using the next stage. The experimental flight times match well with those predicted from the analysis for our vehicle. We achieve a 19% increase in flight time using the batteries in two stages as compared to a single stage.
