Today, there is a conspicuous upward trend for the development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), especially in the field of multirotor drones. Their advantages over fixed-wing aircrafts are that they can hover, which allows their usage in a wide range of remote surveillance applications: industrial, strategic, governmental, public and homeland security. Moreover, because the component market for this type of vehicles is in continuous growth, new concepts have emerged to improve the stability and reliability of the multicopters, but efficient solutions with reduced costs are still expected. This work is focused on hexacopter UAV tests carried out on an original platform both within laboratory and on unrestricted open areas during the start-stop manoeuvres of the motors to verify the operational parameters, hover flight, the drone stability and reliability, as well as the aerodynamics and robustness at different wind speeds. The flight parameters extracted from the sensor systems' comprising accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, barometers, GPS antenna and EO/IR cameras were analysed, and adjustments were performed accordingly, when needed. An FEM simulation approach allowed an additional decision support platform that expanded the experiments in the virtual environment. Finally, practical conclusions were drawn to enhance the hexacopter UAV stability, reliability and manoeuvrability.
Keywords: UAV; remote control and communication; sensor systems; simulation.