The practically applicable endurance estimation method for multirotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) using a battery as a power source is proposed. The method considers both hovering and steady-level flights. The endurance, thrust, efficiency, and battery discharge are determined with generally available data from the manufacturer. The effects of the drag coefficient related to vehicle shape and payload weight are examined at various forward flight speeds. As the drag coefficient increases, the optimum speed at the minimum required power and the maximum endurance are reduced. However, the payload weight causes an opposite effect, and the optimal flying speed increases with an increase in the payload weight. For more practical applications for common users, the value of S × Cd is determined from a preliminary flight test. Given this value, the endurance is numerically estimated and validated with the measured flight time. The proposed method can successfully estimate the flight time with an average error of 2.3%. This method would be useful for designers who plan various missions and select UAVs.

Drive motors, which are used in the drive modules of electric cars, are interior permanent magnet motors. These motors tend to have high cogging torque and torque ripple, which leads to the generation of high vibration and noise. Several studies have attempted to determine methods of reducing the cogging torque and torque ripple in interior permanent magnet motors. The primary methods of reducing the cogging torque involve either electric control or mechanical means. Herein, the authors focused on a mechanical method to reduce the cogging torque and torque ripple. Although various methods of reducing vibration and noise mechanically exist, there is no widely-known comparative analyses on reducing the vibration and noise by designing a notched rotor shape. Therefore, this paper proposes a method of reducing vibration and noise mechanically by designing a notched rotor shape. In the comparative analysis performed herein, the motor stator and rotor were set to be the same size, and electromagnetic field analysis was performed to determine a notch shape that is suitable for the rotor and that generates reasonable vibration and noise.

The recent increase in the use of permanent magnet rotor motors underlines the importance of designing a rotor with an interior permanent magnet (IPM) structure, high power, and high efficiency. This study analyzed the rotor shapes of IPM motors for electric vehicles. Five types of motor rotors for automobiles were analyzed, including two hybrid vehicles. In order to minimize the number of variables in the analysis, the size of the motor stators was fixed and only the rotor shapes were modified to compare torque, torque ripple, efficiency and back-electromotive voltage. When the motor properties were compared as a function of rotor shape, the rotor shape with the smallest magnet volume exhibited excellent results for torque, efficiency and torque ripple.