Numerical investigation of the mechanical component design of a hexacopter drone for real-time fine dust monitoring

Abstract

Multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being widely used in various military and civilian fields because they can replace manned systems in the performance of a variety of difficult and/or hazardous tasks. Various UAV designs have been developed to fulfill the requirements of various applications. The current work investigates the design of a hexacopter drone with foldable arms to support the six propulsion units that is designed for real-time fine dust monitoring. The propeller and foldable arm are the key mechanical power transmission components in this design, so their propulsion performance and safety reliability have been numerically investigated in this research. The finite volume method (FVM) based aerodynamic characteristics simulation is utilized to calculate and observe the operational performance of eight different proposed propeller blade designs. The optimal design was obtained through a series of comparisons of the simulation outcomes. The flow field force acting on the propeller blade was analyzed using the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) based simulation method. In addition, the design philosophy of using carbon fiber composite material to replace the traditional aluminum alloy in the manufacture of the foldable arm is presented. The rationality of this design philosophy is verified through finite element method (FEM) based structural analysis. The design experience gained from this study provides a theoretical basis for the development of components for multi-rotor UAVs.