Design and Analytical Analyses of eVTOL UAV Performance Calculator for Power and Energy

This paper describes the design and analytical analyses of performance calculator for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) unmanned ariel vehicle (UAV). With growing interest in eVTOL UAVs, it is important to have an engineering calculator that can give accurate performance estimates of an eVTOL UAV based on certain design parameters and constraints. The aim of this paper is to present analytical analyses and design of an eVTOL performance calculator being developed by the Technology Innovation Institute (TII). Correlations are developed between motor power, thrust, battery weight and energy. The power against thrust empirical equation is compared with the governing equations extracted from blade element momentum theory. Empirical equation is also extracted from battery weight vs energy data which is directly used in the calculator. The analyses show that empirical correlation can be successfully used to estimate the propulsion and power requirements of an eVTOL UAV.