COMET: A Dual Swashplate Autonomous Coaxial Bi-copter AAV with High-Maneuverability and Long-Endurance

TL;DR

COMET is a novel coaxial bi-copter AAV with a dual swashplate mechanism that improves maneuverability and efficiency, verified through extensive bench and flight tests demonstrating its potential for practical autonomous applications.

Contribution

The paper introduces a dual swashplate design for coaxial bi-copters, enhancing performance and robustness over traditional single swashplate systems.

Findings

Enhanced trajectory tracking performance

Improved flight efficiency and robustness

Successful autonomous flight trials

Abstract

Coaxial bi-copter autonomous aerial vehicles (AAVs) have garnered attention due to their potential for improved rotor system efficiency and compact form factor. However, balancing efficiency, maneuverability, and compactness in coaxial bi-copter systems remains a key design challenge, limiting their practical deployment. This letter introduces COMET, a coaxial bi-copter AAV platform featuring a dual swashplate mechanism. The coaxial bi-copter system's efficiency and compactness are optimized through bench tests, and the whole prototype's efficiency and robustness under varying payload conditions are verified through flight endurance experiments. The maneuverability performance of the system is evaluated in comprehensive trajectory tracking tests. The results indicate that the dual swashplate configuration enhances tracking performance and improves flight efficiency compared to the single swashplate alternative. Successful autonomous flight trials across various scenarios verify COMET's potential for real-world applications.