An Experimental Investigation of Rotor–Box Aerodynamic Interaction1

Multirotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are a promising means of package delivery. Such applications generally involve carrying bulky payloads under the vehicle. Understanding the aerodynamic interaction effects of payloads on the vehicle is the key to design such systems, in the low Reynolds number regime of small UAVs. High-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV), force, and torque measurements have been used with a rotor and a cubic box to investigate the rotor–box interactions and configurations typical of multirotor UAVs. The observed rotor and vehicle performance trends are explained by the mean flow field captured through PIV. Conditions similar to ground-effect operation are developed for the rotor at a high level of rotor-box overlap. A slight improvement in the vehicle performance is observed at conditions where the box is just out of the rotor wake. Some basic instantaneous flow phenomena due to rotor–box interaction have been identified. The interactions have been classified into three distinct modes based on observations at a range of box positions relative to the rotor. An empirical tip vortex trajectory model for isolated rotors is found to be instrumental in predicting the interaction mode at a given box position.