Energy Consumption Comparison of Static Pitch Propeller and Variable Pitch Propeller

What is it about?

Variable pitch propeller is being implemented in a small-scale electric Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to improve efficiency of energy consumption, especially in a cruise flight condition of UAVs. The pitch value of the variable pitch propeller is determined with an equation that depends on two main variables which is the UAV’s airspeed and RPM of the UAV’s motor. In this paper, the energy consumption of a variable pitch propulsion system during a UAV’s cruising condition is being compared with the energy consumption of a cruising condition of a UAV using a fixed pitch propeller. As a result, the variable pitch propeller propulsion system is proven to be more efficient than a fixed pitch propeller propulsion system.

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Photo by Felipe Vieira on Unsplash

Photo by Felipe Vieira on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Currently the development and usage of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle or UAV are increasing rapidly. The use of the UAV itself only began in the 1980s for military purposes and only began to be used for various public purposes in the 2000s. Thus, since a lot of UAVs are used for various purposes, research in the field of UAVs has also improved and the progress of research has improved. The main component of energy consumption from a UAV is the propulsion system, so to develop an energy-efficient UAV, research in the field of propulsion systems will be discussed in this paper. This paper discusses the use of variable-pitch propellers for efficient energy consumption in electric based UAVs. For the past century, variable-pitch propeller has been developed by aviation pioneers and various types of variable-pitch propellers are being patented by aircraft researchers and manufacturing companies. Even in this modern aviation era, variable-pitch propeller remains a focus point in aircraft engine in order to improve fuel efficiency and performance. However, in a small scale electric UAV with fixed wing configuration, the usage of this variable pitch propeller is commonly for acrobatic stunts that demands extreme maneuvers of thrust and its control, such as using reverse thrust.The research done in this paper focuses on the use of variable pitch propellers in fixed-wing small scale electric UAVs type for more efficient flight performance. This research is done to introduce a variable pitch propeller use from a maximizing thrust to achieve efficiency perspective that has not been done by any researchers. The variable pitch propeller equation used in this research depends on 2 main variables which are airspeed and the motor RPM of the vehicle. Hence, the pitch of the propeller would adapt to an optimum value depending on the attitude of the vehicle using an STM32F103C8 microcontroller that would control the pitch value as an open loop control system. The result of static pitch propeller and the use of variable pitch propeller will then be evaluated based on the energy consumption of the propulsion system.

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