Applying robust design methodology to a quadrotor drone
Year: 2017
Editor: Anja Maier, Stanko Škec, Harrison Kim, Michael Kokkolaras, Josef Oehmen, Georges Fadel, Filippo Salustri, Mike Van der Loos
Author: Coulombe, Charles; Gamache, Jean-Francois; Mohebbi, Abolfazl; Chouinard, Ugo; Achiche, Sofiane
Series: ICED
Institution: École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada
Section: Design Methods and Tools
Page(s): 395-404
ISBN: 978-1-904670-92-6
ISSN: 2220-4342
Abstract
Optimization of mechatronics system often rely on optimization of the controller, while treating the structural part of the system as a fixed constraint. The research work presented in this paper has the goal of obtaining a robust design for a quadrotor drone, focusing on the structural parameters of the drone, such as mass and dimensions. A robust design method is a design that focuses on minimizing the effects of the variations of the design parameters, here structural parameters, on the response of the system. In this paper, the system’s response is represented by its energy consumption. Using a MonteCarlo simulation, the most influential design parameters are first determined, and then a designer-defined objective function is minimized to obtain a robust mechanical design for the quadrotor at hand. The optimized drone is then shown consuming less energy than a comparable drone, while also being more robust to variation of design parameters.
Keywords: Case study, Mechatronics, Robust design, Optimisation