Flights of a Multirotor UAS with Structural Faults: Failures on Composite Propeller(s)

• Published in: Data (Basel) 2019-09, Vol.4 (3), p.128
• Main Authors: Gururajan, Srikanth, Mitchell, Kyle, Ebel, William
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accelerometers; Aircraft; Aviation; Carbon fibers; Composite structures; Control algorithms; Data acquisition; Datasets; Drones; Experiments; Failure; failures in composite materials; Flight control systems; Flight tests; hexacopter; Manual control; Pixhawk; Propellers; Sensors; UAS fault tolerance; UAS flight tests; UAS structural failures; Unmanned aerial vehicles
• ISSN: 2306-5729; 2306-5729
• DOI: 10.3390/data4030128

Data acquired from several flights of a custom-fabricated Hexacopter Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) with composite structure (carbon fiber arms and central hub) and composite (carbon fiber) propellers are described in this article. The Hexacopter was assembled from a commercially available kit (Tarot 690) and flown in manual and autonomous modes. Takeoffs and landings were under manual control and the bulk of the flight tests was conducted with the Hexacopter in a “position hold” mode. All flights were flown within the UAS flight cage at Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology at Saint Louis University for approximately 5 min each. Several failure conditions (different types, artificially induced) on the composite (carbon fiber) propellers were tested, including failures on up to two propellers. The dataset described in this article contains flight data from the onboard flight controller (Pixhawk) as well as three accelerometers, each with three axes, mounted on the arms of the Hexacopter UAS. The data are included as supplemental material.