Performance evaluation of RW-Quadrotor and Bi-Quadrotor for payload delivery

Abstract

Payload delivery is one of the many Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) applications that save time, energy, and human resources. The present simulation study compares rotary-wing quadrotors (RW-Quadrotors) and tail-sitter biplane quadrotors (Bi-Quadrotors) under pay load delivery conditions that help to choose the best UAV for the particular mission. A comparative study is performed based on (i) time taken to accomplish the given mis sion, (ii) trajectory tracking performance, (iii) motor speed throughout the entire flight envelope, and (iv) remains SoC (State of Charge) after the mission. Furthermore, a Back stepping Controller (BSC) and an Adaptive Backstepping Controller (ABSC) are developed for both UAVs to handle mass changes during flight while Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used for the gain optimization. MATLAB Simulink-based numerical simulation reveals that the Bi-Quadrotor has a lower average rotor speed than the RW-Quadrotor. However, the Bi Quadrotor’s SoC after the mission is higher than the RW-Quadrotor, and it took less time to accomplish the mission. The ABSC designed for RW-Quadrotor and Bi-Quadrotor effectively handles mass change during the mission. However, the BSC controller increases energy consumption for the Bi-Quadrotor in the presence of wind gusts.