Post-esc-failure performance of a uam-scale hexacopter with dual three-phase motor
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Authors
Fong, Weston
Issue Date
2024-05
Type
Electronic thesis
Thesis
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Mechanical engineering
Alternative Title
Abstract
Dual three-phase motors are simulated on a 1200 lb hexacopter to examine its ability to tolerate any single electronic speed controller (ESC) failure. Redundancy is built into the powertrain, as each motor includes two sets of stators powered by electrically independent ESCs that drive a single motor shaft together. Control laws are tuned on the healthy aircraft to meet standard flying-qualities specifications. Power constraints are embedded in the controller to enforce both instantaneous and continuous power limits for each ESC. With the proposed powertrain, the aircraft is shown to be capable of trimming in all single ESC failure cases, including the case of aft failure in forward flight. Time-domain simulations demonstrate the aircraft's ability to re-establish trim and recover from any single ESC failure in hover and forward flight. Flying-qualities specifications are re-evaluated for the post-failure aircraft, showing minor degradation in several flying-qualities metrics. The post-failure aircraft's ability to follow commands without violating power constraints is verified through time-domain simulations. Thus, the benefits of implementing the dual three-phase motor on eVTOL aircraft are demonstrated by the hexacopter's ability to operate after any single ESC failure.
Description
May2024
School of Engineering
School of Engineering
Full Citation
Publisher
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY