Parameter analysis and design for the hovering thrust of a quad-rotor air vehicle using CFD and design of experiment

The present study explores the aerodynamic parameter analysis and design of a quad-rotor air vehicle in hover using Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and Design of experiments (DOE). Following the identification of the center distance between rotors in terms of hovering thrust and velocity/pressure distributions, the blade-shape parameter design is implemented to predict the optimal levels of twist angle, maximum chord position, blade cross-section type and twist position, and the significant factor effects and factor interactions in DOE are discussed. The present study shows that optimized twist angle and twist-starting position enables maximum hovering thrust in the proposed quad-copter.