Simulation and experimental analysis of hovering and flight of a quadrotor

Abstract

Quadcopters were the first heavier than air vertical take-off landing vehicles. Quadrotors have become increasingly popular in the recent years finding a great variety of applications in different fields such as surveillance and small goods transport. The flight of quad-rotors are not easily analysed, but computational fluid dynamic simulations are a credible source of reliable modelling. In the present paper, an analysis in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is presented performed on a quadrotor model SYMA X5SC with focus on the fuselage and the rotor blades. The quadrotor is analysed in three different models; fuselage, rotor and full configuration. The models have been designed using CAD tools and encapsulated in a volume domain. Volume unstructured meshes are used and contain a maximum of 3.5 million of cells. Each blade was assigned to a moving cell zone making it possible to rotate. Steady and unsteady flow simulations have been carried out. Hover, and forward and side wind cases were inspected. The flight was simulated for the hovering mode at three different angles of attack and free stream velocities.