Assessment of the Handling Qualities of Multirotor Configurations using Real Time Simulation

Abstract

The popularity of the electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft in the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) market has significantly increased over the last decade. Many institutes and companies around the globe are conducting research in this field to translate the theory into practice by developing novel eVTOL configurations. At the German Aerospace Center, the Institute of Flight Systems has been developing processes not only to model novel configurations, but also to asses them qualitatively with real pilots. In this regard, a study concerning the Handling Qualities (HQs) assessments of a two passenger quadrotor configuration with variable blade pitch and variable rotor rotational speed control was conducted. The simulation tests were performed in DLR?s Air VEhicle Simulator (AVES), where the HQs were assessed through Mission Task Elements (MTEs) taken from ADS-33E-PRF. Results from the study showed critical HQs issues regarding the control sensitivity, vehicle stability and yaw bandwidth.