Flight Test Comparison of Gust Rejection Capability for Various Multirotor Configurations

Multirotor unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are prone to tubulent wind conditions and gust disturbances. Improving gust rejection performance is a critical technology to enable multirotor UAS operations in highly turbulent conditions and has been a recent topic of interest for study. To better understand the impacts of configuration and demonstrate methodologies for improving gust rejection performance, three different multicopters (a quadcopter, hexacopter, and octocopter) were studied. For each vehicle, system identification was used to obtain models from flight data, flight control systems were designed to maximize gust rejection capability, and gust rejection performance was validated in flight using a physically simulated gusts and tubulence. An overview of the key developments and results are presented in this paper.