Hardware-In-The-Loop Simulation Environment with a Robotic Arm for Multicopter Performance Evaluation

The drone service market has been expanding rapidly in recent years, and demand for drones is expected to increase as well. In Japan, with the lifting of the ban on Level 4 flights from FY2023, an aircraft certification and licensing system for unmanned aircraft vehicle has come into effect. In conjunction with this, a more efficient drone performance evaluation method is needed. Currently, after testing the performance of the controller using a plant model built in a computer, the main performance evaluation test is a flight test in the field. Flight tests are expensive because they require a large site and involve risks such as crashes. Although national research institutes are conducting research on drone flight simulation using a robotic arm, the use of this technology is not widespread because it requires large-scale facilities and is limited in what it can do. If a small robotic arm can evaluate the flight behavior of a drone without flying it outside, it will accelerate the development and spread of drones. This study focused on the feasibility and methodology of a flight simulation in which a multicopter attached to a small robot arm is moved, the applied force is measured, and the robot arm reproduces the flight behavior accordingly. The environment necessary for simulation implementation was built and the simulation was implemented.