High-fidelity Unmanned Multirotor Flight Dynamics Simulation for Off-nominal Conditions

About this technology

Overview

This innovation is a six degree-of-freedom modeling and simulation architecture and database for predicting the flight dynamics behavior of small/medium sized multirotor vehicles in off-nominal and/or extreme out-of-envelope conditions. The development of this technology was motivated by ongoing efforts to integrate small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) vehicles into the National Airspace System (NAS). These efforts include development of risk and safety analysis methods that will enable autonomous, beyond-visual-range operations and could include real-time flight monitoring systems, trajectory prediction during off-nominal or failure scenarios, and probabilistic safety analyses. The modeling and simulation architecture comprises aerodynamic and propulsion models that are valid for all-attitude flight conditions such as extreme relative wind angles (e.g. high angle of attack and sideslip angles), very high vehicle angular rates typical of loss-of-control events, vortex ring state conditions, and onboard system or component failures. The aerodynamic and propulsion models are derived using specialized wind tunnel test methods that replicate extreme off-nominal flight conditions.