Maneuverability Simulations of a Turbulence-Resilient eVTOL Aerial Vehicle

Abstract

Electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles can be adopted for passenger transport, cargo delivery, and other services to embody urban air mobility. Turbulence in the low atmosphere can significantly affect their flight performance, reliability, and safety in practice. In this work, we develop a fundamental dynamic model of a tiltable quadrotor eVTOL vehicle to study its maneuverability under practical turbulence condition. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is developed to determine the optimal rotor speeds and rotor tilt angles at regular time intervals to manage a smooth flight path. The effect of actuator delay on flight stability under turbulent winds is investigated. Its performance is evaluated by simulating the effects of rotor tilt angle on flight path angle and maximum flight speed, the effects of flight level-speed and attitude on turning radius, as well as the effects of turbulent wind on flight path at various altitudes. A practical actuator delay, which is needed to effectively compensate for turbulence and maintain stable flight, is determined by simulations. The proposed eVTOL vehicle can take a smooth flight path with stable attitude, characterized by small root-mean-square deviations.