Scaling laws and similarity models for the preliminary design of multirotor drones

Abstract

Multirotor drones modelling and parameter estimation have gained great interest because of their vast application for civil, industrial, military and agricultural purposes. At the preliminary design level the challenge is to develop lightweight models which remain representative of the physical laws and the system interdependencies. Based on the dimensional analysis, this paper presents a variety of modelling approaches for the estimation of the functional parameters and characteristics of the key components of the system. Through this work a solid framework is presented for helping bridge the gaps between optimizing idealized models and selecting existing components from a database. Special interest is given to the models in terms of reliability and error. The results are compared for various existing drone platforms with different requirements and their differences discussed.