Aerodynamic Performance of a Quadrotor MAV Considering the Horizontal Wind

The aerodynamic performance of the quadrotor is usually suffering a lower propulsive efficiency in a windy environment. Especially the horizontal wind may affect the attitude control to provide sufficient thrust to lift the entire vehicle or cause extra power consumption. In this paper, the aerodynamic characteristics of a micro quadrotor aircraft considering the horizontal wind disturbance are studied by both experiments and simulations. First, the aerodynamic model of the quadrotor with the influence of horizontal wind disturbance is deviated in details. Then, the distribution of flow field of the quadrotorr MAV considering the effects of horizontal wind was simulated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. Finally, the thrust and power consumption of quadrotor with rotational speed ranged from 1500 to 2300 r/min were obtained in a low-speed wind tunnel. The comparison of simulation and experimental results shows that the distribution of flow field becomes more complicated with mutual interferences resulted by the distortion of rotor wake and crash of the downwash flow from the front rotors along with the wind direction. The thrust of the rotors gradually increases with wind speed, resulting from the increment of pressure difference between the upper and lower surfaces. However, the power consumption is also increasing because of the possible vibration caused by the strong interactions when the wind speed is up to 4.0 m/s. Also, the power loading of the quadrotor is larger at 2.5 m/s, which shows a good wind resistance with a better aerodynamic performance.