An Initial Flight Performance Assessment of New Urban Air Mobility Concept Vehicles for Medical Rendezvous Operations

Abstract

A novel multirotor architecture with decoupled thrust is introduced for transporting the emergency medical personnel to the scene of emergency without the need of rescue helicopters (designed for patient transport). Two conceptual configurations were derived based on this architecture. A first flight performance assessment was conducted on the derived configurations. The model synthesis took place on a statistically determined design gross weight. The aerodynamic performance were estimated using numerical simulations and additional parasite drag components. Trim calculations were performed from hover to maximum design speed both with isolated rotors and rotor-rotor interactions included. For this purpose, a mid-fidelity rotor-rotor interaction module was extended to capture 3D interaction components of the rotors and coupled with the trim calculations. The trim calculations show a 10% increase in the vehicle power at maximum flight speed. The interaction on the pusher propellers due to downwash from lifting rotors indicate the show sudden increases in the propeller inflow. The results are further discussed for the introduced configurations in two flight modes, as the effects of the rotor rotor interaction are shown in rotor and vehicle level.