Experimental Validation of Fault Tolerance in a Hexa-rotor with Inclined Arms

Abstract

Recently, some work has emerged re-carrying the advantages of flying with multicopters with inclined rotors, that is, rotors that do not point in the direction of the vertical of the vehicle. In particular, it was shown that in order to achieve a hexa-rotor vehicle capable of tolerating faults in one of its rotors, it is necessary that they be inclined. So far, experimental validations of these results have considered partial failures in the rotors. More precisely, cases have been analyzed in which one of the rotors loses thrust capacity. However, the theoretical results admit a total failure of the rotors, that is, one of the rotors stops completely. In this work we experimentally validate the total failure of a rotor and show how a hexa-rotor vehicle is capable of maintaining its maneuverability in the face of the total loss of one of its rotors.