Multicopter Setup Help

[Warren Rose]

Hello,

I am part of a new student design team looking to utilize SUAVE for multirotor aircraft design. I've been doing some initial research and have looked through some of the tutorials listed on the website. However I've been having difficulty finding any information on setting up vehicle parameters and the capabilities of SUAVE for multirotor drones. 

For reference, our team is looking to simulate various smaller (<50 lbs) hexacopter configurations for our assigned mission

I see ample information on fixed wing, as well as the guides on eVTOL, (which are quite helpful) however once the fixed wing aspect is removed I was curious about how to approach the setup and performance.

I'm mainly looking for some places to start looking! Documentation, guides, advice, or past projects would be awesome.

Thanks

[Emilio]

Hi,

I suggest you watch this video on the tail sitter drone. In this tutorial it has some segments that behave just as a standard multirotor. 

Most mission segments require an aerodynamics model but the hover segments are a simple force calculation. You don't need a wing for these segments.tsu

Just as a heads up, SUAVEs use for multirotors is great for rotor design and battery sizing. It's not great dynamics and controls. So if you're looking to figure out how long your multicopter will fly for and how to make it fly longer it's the right tool for you.

Also take a look at this setup script (for large vehicles) to see more options.

-Emilio