Conceptual design of multicopters to optimize their endurance (a viability study)

Abstract

Due to their tight weight and power restrictions, design of multicopters with electric engines is a complex issue and a representative example of real world non-linear opti-mization problems, with difficulties such as variables that can either be implemented as discrete or continous, different functions to be optimized or restrictions expressed in tabular form rather than analytical form. In this work, different algorithms to design multicopters are fully implemented and compared. One type of algorithms are based on an iterative method following the traditional design workflow, where estimations of the different variables are improved at each iteration, while the second type is a faster and direct algorithm. Data from hundreds of real commercial products was obtained, pro-cessed and properly implemented in databases, which were used in the different models of each part of the multicopter. Several experimental tests in a test bench and during real flying conditions have been performed. Finally, a parametric study and different configuration maps are computed, allowing how the multicopters could improve with future technologies.