Publications

2026

1. Journal

   

   Numerical Analysis on the Influence of Rotor Configuration on Quad-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flight Performance

   Brendan H. P. Mullen, Pau Varela Martínez, Jorge García-Tíscar, and Luis Miguel García-Cuevas

   Drones, 2026

   Abs DOI Bib PDF

   While fixed, unactuated rotor tilt is increasingly utilised in commercial multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), its impact on forward flight performance remains poorly documented in the literature. The current work addresses this gap in the literature by systematically quantifying the performance trade-offs of rotor tilt across various airspeeds. Furthermore, a novel rotor configuration is proposed to mitigate some of the tilted rotor configuration’s inherent drawbacks. The different configurations are evaluated using a computationally affordable numerical approach that combines steady-state computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, a simple proportional–integral (P–I) trimming algorithm, and actuator disk rotor modelling (ADM). The findings reveal that the aircraft’s power requirements can be reduced by more than 29% for airspeeds greater than 20 m/s, while its range can be increased by up to 22% with the alternative rotor configurations. However, the modifications were found to have a significantly lesser impact on endurance, as only a 2.9% increase is noted at best.

   @article{drones10020105,
     author = {Mullen, Brendan H. P. and Varela Martínez, Pau and García-Tíscar, Jorge and García-Cuevas, Luis Miguel},
     title = {Numerical Analysis on the Influence of Rotor Configuration on Quad-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flight Performance},
     journal = {Drones},
     volume = {10},
     year = {2026},
     number = {2},
     article-number = {105},
     issn = {2504-446X},
     doi = {10.3390/drones10020105},
   }

2025

1. Conference

   

   Numerical analysis on the influence of rotor configuration on quad-rotor flight performance

   L.M. García-Cuevas, J. García-Tíscar, P. Varela, and B. Mullen

   In 11th European Conference for AeroSpace Sciences (EUCASS), Jul 2025

   DOI Bib PDF

   @inproceedings{AURORA_EUCASS_2025,
     author = {García-Cuevas, L.M. and García-Tíscar, J. and Varela, P. and Mullen, B.},
     title = {Numerical analysis on the influence of rotor configuration on quad-rotor flight performance},
     booktitle = {11th European Conference for AeroSpace Sciences (EUCASS)},
     year = {2025},
     month = jul,
     address = {Rome, Italy},
     doi = {10.13009/EUCASS2025-518},
   }