Asymmetrical Tricopter

ArduCopter Copter 4.4
1

Hello there!

For our bachelors project we are just in the beginning stages of building an asymmetrical tricopter for testing flight times and power draw versus traditional tri- and quadcopters. We will be using ArduPilot with a Pixhawk 6C mini.

This means that we are building a tricopter with 2 large motors and propellers in the front, with one smaller propeller and motor in the back. The thought is also to have a servo motor in the back controlling the angle of the back motor.

I have searched around a bit but cant seem to find anyone else using differing motor sizes on the same copter, so i am wondering if anyone has any advice or links that could help us?

The main concern is if the Pixhawk and ArduPilot can properly use the smaller motor to stabilise, and which parameters should be adjusted to accomodate for its smaller size.

Thanks for any help!

2

That is a standard tricopter. Make sure to configure it methodically and you should be fine.

3

Really? The tricopters i have seen all have equal size rotors. The one we are building have 2 30" propellers and one 12" with servo. Do you have any resources on this?

4

That makes no difference. the servo will automatically compensate for the size difference.

1 Like
5

In the end it’s a question of balancing thrust vs CG. If you put the CG far enough forward that you basically have a tailheavy bicopter, then even a 5" tailrotor should be fine.

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6

Right, that makes sense thanks!