単一テザーで給電する複数クアッドコプターの電力解析と応用
Tethered Power for a Series of Quadcopters: Analysis and Applications
1本のテザーで複数台のクアッドコプターに給電するシステムについて、推力と電力の関係を解析し、2台構成が1台構成より消費電力を抑えられる条件や火災消火・障害物越しの把持などの応用例を示した。
著者: Karan P. Jain, Prasanth Kotaru, Massimiliano de Sa, Koushil Sreenath, Mark W. Mueller
分類: eess.SY, cs.RO, cs.SY
原文アブストラクト
Tethered quadcopters are used for extended flight operations where the power to the system is provided via a tether connected to an external power source. In this work, we consider a system of multiple quadcopters powered by a single tether. We study the design factors that influence the power requirements, such as the electrical resistance of the tether, input voltage, and quadcopters' positions. We present an analysis to predict the required power to be supplied to a series of N tethered quadcopters, with respect to the thrust of each quadcopter which guarantees electrical safety and helps in design optimization. We find that there is a critical boundary of thrusts that cannot be exceeded due to fundamental electrical limitations. We compare the power consumption for one tethered quadcopter and two tethered quadcopters and show that for large quadcopters far enough from the anchor point, a two-quadcopter system consumes lesser power. We show that, for a representative use case of firefighting, a tethered system with two quadcopters consumes 26% less power than a corresponding system with one quadcopter. Finally, we present experiments demonstrating the use of a two-quadcopter tethered system as compared to a one-quadcopter tethered system in a cluttered environment, such as passing through a window and grasping an object over an obstacle.
