Augmentation of an Electric Ducted Fan Quadcopter for Long Range Flight

Abstract

This paper details the design, construction, and flight testing of a small scale remote con-trolled vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft with a novel configuration. The aircraft configuration consists of a canard-winged airplane with four electric ducted fans pitched up-ward off of the horizontal by 45 degrees and attached to the side of the fuselage so that the bottom lips of the ducts are directly behind the trailing edges of the airfoils. The advantages and disadvantages of this configuration are discussed, and a method is presented for calculating the increase in range attributed to the addition of airfoils over a standard quadcopter. While further work could provide a quantitative performance analysis, flight testing served as a proof-of-concept that this configuration could be viable for long range transportation applications where VTOL is required.