Evaluation of variable pitch and fixed pitch propeller effects on a designed test bench

Abstract

Multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been trending among academics and professionals. It has a wide scope of use in industries like cargo transportation, measurement, mapping, video and photo shooting, search and rescue, agriculture, and construction. Despite its advantages in movement and control, it gives too little hover time. A great deal of quadrotor or multirotor propeller designs have a fixed-pitch propeller which is mechanically simple. In addition, it provides excellent maneuverability, survivability and controllability. Variable-pitch propellers are used in many practices such as ships, aircrafts, helicopters and recently quadrotor applications. In this study, it is aimed to find the lift force generated on the rotor by changing the angles of the propeller at the constant speed and design a prototype with optimized PID with coefficients. A pre-model was tested to determine the generated lift force and simulated the altitude trajectory of quadrotors. The simulation results compared with the controller using PID coefficients. The measurements of this experimental testing support the potential benefits of the variable-pitch propellers. This research shows the difference between fixed and variable pitch angle applications with optimized PID. It is concluded that when compared in terms of altitude trajectory control, it is found that variable-pitch propeller tracks a better trajectory than fixed-pitch propeller.