Development and validation of the multicopter modelling code: a physics-based tool for multicopter analysis
Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology
ISSN: 0002-2667
Article publication date: 26 April 2022
Issue publication date: 5 December 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to present details of the development and validation of the multicopter modelling code (MMC), a tool for the analysis of small-scale multicopters based on flight physics.
Design/methodology/approach
The development effort involved the study of aircraft dynamics and translating the equations of motion into MATLAB code. The authors also developed several auxiliary functions, so that the tool could trim the aircraft about a steady state, linearize the dynamic equations to produce a model that could be used for control systems design and carry out flight simulation.
Findings
MMC proved to be of good accuracy, producing results similar to those of other software such as AcuSolve, Overflow and the Rensselaer Multicopter Analysis Code (RMAC), which served as the motivation for this study.
Originality/value
The tool presented here provides an alternative to the aforementioned software, which are not freely available, programmed in MATLAB, a language well known to engineers and scientists.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr Robert Niemiec of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for his guidance throughout the project. Thanks are also due to Dr K. Natarajan and Mr Samuel Vivek Williams of Jain University for their help.
Citation
Oppong, D.K., Obu, E., Asare, T. and Aidam, G.S.K. (2022), "Development and validation of the multicopter modelling code: a physics-based tool for multicopter analysis", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 94 No. 10, pp. 1684-1691. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEAT-01-2022-0011
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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