Design, Development, and Testing of an Autonomous Multirotor for Personal Transportation

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Systems are extensively used for tasks like inspection of high-risk areas, agriculture, remote sensing, or simply for entertainment. New avenues of drone applications are still being explored. The goal of this project is to create an autonomous aerial vehicle capable of transporting a human passenger as payload. Preliminarily, a smaller equivalent multirotor aircraft has been developed and tested to explore possible structure/hardware configurations and to study flight behavior. Upon completion of the small-scale drone, the large multirotor aircraft capable of lifting the equivalent weight of a human passenger will be developed, assembled, and tested utilizing the selected final configuration of the smaller prototype. The development of a personal aerial transportation system will trigger public discussion on the potential of autonomous “air taxi” transportation systems and generate excitement and interest in STEM fields, primarily the field of aeronautics. Also, this project will further increase public trust of autonomous transportation by proving the safety and reliability of automated systems and flight in general. In turn, our effort will create numerous opportunities for further advancement in the applications of automation to aeronautics. This project, under the name “ATLAS: Advanced Transportation through Leading-edge Aerial Systems”, has been selected by NASA as a winner of the 2019 University Student Research Challenge. Notably, it aligns with NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s Thrust 6: Assured Autonomy for Aviation Transformation through the initial testing of autonomy in large drones for civilian use.