A Lifting Wing Fixed on Multirotor UAVs for Long Flight Ranges

This paper presents a lifting-wing multirotor UAV that allows long-range flight. The UAV features a lifting wing in a special mounting angle that works together with rotors to supply lift when it flies forward, achieving a reduction in energy consumption and improvement of flight range compared to traditional multirotor UAVs. Its design considers aerodynamics, airframe configuration and the mounting angle. Its optimization model is built according to the classical multirotor theory and the fixed-wing theory, as the aerodynamics of its multiple propellers and that of its lifting wing are almost decoupled. The performance of the UAV is verified by experiments, which show that the lifting wing saves 50.14% of the power when the UAV flies at the cruise speed (15m/s).