Numerical Analysis on the Influence of Rotor Configuration on Quad-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flight Performance

[EN] While fixed, unactuated rotor tilt is increasingly utilised in commercial multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), its impact on forward flight performance remains poorly documented in the literature. The current work addresses this gap in the literature by systematically quantifying the per...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Brendan Hannu Patrick, Varela-Martínez, Pau, García-Tíscar, Jorge|||0000-0003-4934-4587, García-Cuevas González, Luis Miguel|||0000-0001-9340-0617
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2026
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repositorio:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:dnet:riunet______::c48ded8eafb5b7b20301052ba795fbf9
Acceso en línea:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/236083
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:CFD
Multi-rotor
Trim
Aerodynamics
Performance
UAV
09.- Desarrollar infraestructuras resilientes, promover la industrialización inclusiva y sostenible, y fomentar la innovación
Descripción
Sumario:[EN] While fixed, unactuated rotor tilt is increasingly utilised in commercial multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), its impact on forward flight performance remains poorly documented in the literature. The current work addresses this gap in the literature by systematically quantifying the performance trade-offs of rotor tilt across various airspeeds. Furthermore, a novel rotor configuration is proposed to mitigate some of the tilted rotor configuration¿s inherent drawbacks. The different configurations are evaluated using a computationally affordable numerical approach that combines steady-state computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, a simple proportional¿integral (P¿I) trimming algorithm, and actuator disk rotor modelling (ADM). The findings reveal that the aircraft¿s power requirements can be reduced by more than 29% for airspeeds greater than 20 m/s, while its range can be increased by up to 22% with the alternative rotor configurations. However, the modifications were found to have a significantly lesser impact on endurance, as only a 2.9% increase is noted at best.