Conceptual Design of a Multi-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Based on an Axiomatic Design

Abstract

This paper presents the conceptual design of a multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based on an axiomatic design. In most aerial vehicle design approaches, design configurations are affected by past and current design tendencies as well as an engineer’s preferences. In order to design a systematic design framework and provide fruitful design configurations for a new type of rotorcraft, the axiomatic design theory is applied to the conceptual design process. Axiomatic design is a design methodology of a system that uses two design axioms by applying matrix methods to systematically analyze the transformation of customer needs into functional requirements (FRs), design parameters (DPs), and process variables. This paper deals with two conceptual rotary wing UAV designs, and the evaluations of tri-rotor and quad-rotor UAVs with proposed axiomatic approach. In this design methodology, design configurations are mainly affected by the selection of FRs, constraints, and DPs.