Aerodynamic Characteristics of a Hex-Rotor MAV With Three Coaxial Rotors in Hover

In order to study the aerodynamic characteristics of a Hex-rotor micro aerial vehicle (MAV) with different rotor spacing, both experiments and numerical simulations are performed in this paper. First of all, a series of aerodynamic parameters to characterize the hover performance of the Hex-rotor MAV are analyzed theoretically. Secondly, tests on the Hex-rotor MAV with different rotor spacing ratios (i=0.5 , 0.56, 0.63, 0.71, 0.83, 1.00) is presented in detail. The thrust and power of the Hex-rotor MAV are obtained from the self-designed test platform. In the meanwhile, pressure and velocity distribution of the Hex-rotor MAV are obtained by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation. The results show that the aerodynamic performance of the Hex-rotor MAV is varied with the rotor spacing. Specifically, the rotor interference is inclined to improve the aerodynamic performance of the Hex-rotor MAV with the proper rotor spacing. Owing to the increase of rotor spacing, the interactions between rotors are weakening gradually. In addition, the uniformity of velocity distribution, the stability of downwash distribution and the integrity of vortex are the necessary conditions for a larger thrust of the Hex-rotor MAV. Finally, combined with the test and simulation results, it is also found that there is larger thrust characterized with better aerodynamic performance at i=0.63 , which is assumed as the best rotor arrangement of the Hex-rotor MAV. Especially for Re =1.16 × 10
⁵
, the thrust increases by 6.09%, and the hover efficiency increases by about 9.17% in general.