Maneuver based dynamic power consumption model of a hover-linearized quadcopter

This paper presents a new approach to predicting the power consumed by a quadcopter for tracing a given trajectory. Our approach to deriving a power consumption model is based on tracking the instantaneous power profiles of individual rotors corresponding to the maneuvers that a quadcopter takes while following a given trajectory. We validate with experiments that the power consumed by the quadcopter depends not only on its velocity and payload weight but also on its maneuvers. Using experimental data, we also show the dynamic nature of power consumption, which, unlike literature, is mostly considered static for a given velocity. Further, we perform simulations to demonstrate the method to compute instantaneous power consumed by the rotors of a hover-linearized quadrotor having PD control architecture. Given two trajectories to meet an objective, we have shown how the model developed in this paper can be used to choose between the two trajectories based on power consumption.