Development of a test-rig for exploring optimal conditions of small unmanned aerial vehicle co-axial rotor systems

Abstract

Due to the recent increase in development and use of co-axial rotor system at the scale of small UAVs a greater understanding of the performance variables that affect the co-axial propulsion system at low Reynolds number operation has become increasingly apparent when optimizing such systems. This paper focuses on and details the development and fabrication of a small UAV co-axial rotor system test-rig, and investigations into the optimal inter-rotor spacing range between contra-rotating rotors. An integrated test-rig has been specifically designed for the testing and analysis of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) propellers and out-runner motors which are predominantly used in SUAV propulsion systems. The test-rig incorporates linear motion, yaw, force and other performance measurements, to help validate the identified core co-axial rotor system performance attributes. The co-axial test-rig was used to investigate co-axial rotor systems inter-rotor spacing which identified an optimum H/D ratio region of (0.41 – 0.65)

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Identifiers

ORCID for Stephen D. Prior: orcid.org/0000-0002-4993-4942

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