Modular reconfigurable rotorcraft for autonomous cargo delivery

Abstract

Traditional air mobility capability development consists of defining a set of requirements and subsequently designing an aircraft that satisfies these requirements. Once designed, the overall structure or topology of the aircraft is fixed. That is, the aircraft has certain fixed physical dimensions, number and sizes of rotors, engines, etc. The topology cannot be changed to accomplish missions outside of its original design envelope, and if designed for a robust mission spectrum, the aircraft may be inefficient during routine missions that do not require peak performance. The work reported here takes a different approach where a core set of components (fuselage, rotor, power plant, etc) defines the fundamental modules of the air mobility system. The modules were developed using mature and readily available technologies and designed to be quickly connected to other modules to assemble different aircraft configurations with widely varying performance characteristics. The aircraft can be reconfigured between missions to best satisfy mission requirements. Thus, the envelope of achievable performance characteristics is significantly expanded compared to a single aircraft. This concept is explored for autonomous air cargo delivery missions targeted for nominal payloads and ranges around 500 pounds and 500 nautical miles with maximum payloads up to 3500 pounds across shorter distances. Results indicate that for mission spectrums with large differences between nominal and maximum payloads and skewed towards smaller payloads, the operational cost per lb-km is significantly reduced using a modular and reconfigurable air mobility system since cargo delivery requirements can be better matched to an air vehicle system.