Omni-Plus-Seven (O7+): An Omnidirectional Aerial Prototype with a Minimal Number of Unidirectional Thrusters

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the design of a novel omnidirectional Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with seven uni-directional thrusters, called O 7 +. The paper formally defines the O + design for a generic number of propellers and presents its necessary conditions; then it illustrates a method to optimize the placement and orientation of the platform's propellers to achieve a balanced O + design. The paper then details the choice of the parameters of the O 7 + UAV, and highlights the required mechanical and electrical components. The resultant platform is tested in simulation, before being implemented as a prototype. The prototype is firstly static-bench tested to match its nominal and physical models, followed by hovering tests in multiple orientations. The presented prototype shows the ability to fly horizontally, upside down and at a tilted angle.

Design of multirotor aerial vehicles: A taxonomy based on input allocation

“…The F 1 set of this design is presented in Figure 28. A prototype of the platform was presented in Hamandi et al (2020) to demonstrate the OD ability of the design.…”

A Modular Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Design Approach for Development of an Engineering Education Platform

“…Although the proposed design is useful, the paper does not present experimental testing of the concept. Bearing in mind the possible different applications of multirotor UAVs, unconventional multirotor configurations have been considered and investigated [ 31 , 32 ], as well as fully-actuated multirotor configurations [ 33 , 34 ].…”

Understanding the omnidirectional capability of a generic multi-rotor aerial vehicle

“…Similarly, the design in [7] optimize the orientation of fixed propellers to achieve the omnidirectional property, while balancing the lift among the different propellers, and aiming for a sphere like shape of the corresponding force set. [1] later presented a working prototype of the design, where the platform employed a minimal number of uni-directional thrusters (seven) to achieve omnidirectional position and orientation tracking.…”

“…While each of the reviewed omnidirectional designs could achieve the omnidirectional property with a different actuation approach, the presented metrics reflect this property for any MRAV, while taking into consideration the platform's design and actuation limits. We then demonstrate the use of the presented metrics to analyze the omnidirectional property of "Omni-plus-seven", the design presented in [1], and of a revised version of it with similar geometry and different weight and actuation properties (see Fig. 1.)…”

“…The work formally defines these conditions and presents numerical metrics that reflect the satisfaction of the omnidirectional property. These metrics are then applied to assess the omnidirectional property of "Omni-plus-seven", i.e., an omnidirectional MRAV consisting of a hepta-rotor with uni-directional thrusters [1]. Finally the work shows the use of such metrics in the design of a new platform with similar geometry and modified weight and actuators.…”