Design Optimisation of a Reconfigurable Perching Element for Vertical Take-Off and Landing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) multi-rotor rotary-wing vehicles face many challenges such as harsh weather conditions and low endurance which affect their overall performance and usability. The current usage of these types of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (sUAVs) has changed to an urban and cluttered environment, which the larger fixed-wing UAVs cannot access and gain the required data. With interesting flight regimes such as perching, small man-portable UAVs have found their way into the military and the ever growing civilian sector. This paper aims to provide a method of setting design parameters for a reconfigurable perching element, which replaces the current landing gear on a VTOL UAV which has a maximum take-off mass (MTOM) of <1.5 kg. These design parameters are used to create concepts along with various different grasping methods to cover the design solution space. A weighted matrix method was applied for the design selection and optimisation process, where carefully selected criteria and weightings were chosen to give the VTOL UAV the ability to perch on top of lighting columns, which are a common form of street furniture found in most urban environments.

Rescue Management and Assessment of Structural Damage by Uav in Post-Seismic Emergency

“…Currently the research on UAVs involves studies related to specific aspects such as: performance optimization, flight and navigation control, route planning and obstacle avoidance. For example, for what concerns the optimization of the UAV performances, the length of the flight time, necessary to travel waypoints (reference points in the physical space used for navigation), has been minimized in some UAV models by using an approach based on the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP), the simplest among the tasks of distribution logistics (Erbil et al 2013). Moreover, there are several options to increase the autonomy of unmanned aerial systems, i.e.…”

Perching and resting—A paradigm for UAV maneuvering with modularized landing gears

“…The need for perching capabilities in UAVs has led to research in a wide range of different forms of landing gears (26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44), control for the required flight regimes, and the generation and optimization of approach trajectories (30-32, 37, 38, 45-47). Surface contacts were established and maintained with dry adhesive technology, such as electrostatic surfaces (41)(42)(43) or fibers (44).…”

“…Other UAV-mounted grippers took design inspiration from the feet of songbirds for perching on branch-shaped structures (37)(38)(39)(40). Furthermore, grippers were used to attach to flat surfaces (32,46) and, in some cases, also served as landing skids when opened (36). In general, passive and compliant grippers can wrap around structures (34,(39)(40)(41), whereas actuated grippers can actively grasp a structure to attach the UAV (33,36).…”

Towards Autonomous Modular UAV Missions: The Detection, Geo-Location and Landing Paradigm

“…Such implementations may include reconfigurable perching elements [52], electromagnets in landing legs or platform, fastening straps, retractable hooks, etc.…”