Studying the effect of current on an electric-powered ducted fan using artificial neural networks

Abstract

In this paper, an experimental study is performed to find the relation between the current of a battery and the power thrust of an electric-powered ducted fan. Electric-powered duct fans are becoming increasingly popular in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and are controlled by a pulse position modulation controller. Three different measurements are taken by three transducers, namely: a multimeter with a range of 0 to 400 DC Amps that measures the input current feeding the electric speed controller from the batteries; a load cell with a range of 0 to 45 KG to measure the thrust output of each of the motor; and, a thermocouple to measure the temperature of the Li-Po batteries. Once the data was obtained, an artificial neural network was trained and tested to obtain the relationship between the input (pulse position modulation) and output (the thrust). The effects of battery current on an electric-powered ducted fan are then summarized.