SUMMARY:
UCLA researchers in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering have developed a modular and reconfigurable mechanical platform that connects any number of multi-rotor copters into one flying unit.
BACKGROUND:
Multi-rotor copters are used in a wide range of applications including mapping, monitoring, delivery and emergency response. Quad-rotor copters, the most common type of commercially available copter, have fixed propeller axes parallel to the main air frame, which restrains their orientations to nearly horizontal, thus limiting their maneuverability. Payloads for these copters are constrained by size, speed and number of rotors. New copter designs are needed that provide greater maneuverability and payload flexibility.
UCLA researchers in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering have developed a modular and reconfigurable mechanical platform for multi-rotor copters that does not require copters and rotors to be parallel to the main frame. The platform interconnects multiple multi-rotor copters to form one flying unit. The copters are connected either by hinges (1 degree of freedom, DOF) or gimbals (2 DOF), allowing them to be nonparallel to the main frame while maintaining lift of the overall unit. These connections can be engaged/disengaged pre-flight or in air to establish optimal orientation angles and thrust forces with a direction that is correlated to the hinge’s or gimbal’s orientation angles.
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS:
ADVANTAGES:
RELATED MATERIALS:
P. Yu, Y. Su, M. J. Gerber, L. Ruan and T. -C. Tsao, "An Over-Actuated Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicle With Unconstrained Attitude Angles and High Thrust Efficiencies," in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 6828-6835, Oct. 2021, doi: 10.1109/LRA.2021.3095035.
DEVELOPMENT TO DATE:
Successful demonstration in prototypes.