A Case for a Battery-Aware Model of Drone Energy Consumption

Abstract

The market of small drones has been recently increasing due to their use in many fields of application. The most popular drones are multirotors, in particular quadcopters. They are usually supplied with batteries of limited capacity, and for this reason their total flight time is also limited.As a consequence of the non linear characteristics of batteries, estimation of the real flight time may become an issue, since most battery models do not include all the non idealities. Consequently, applications such as delivery service, search and rescue, surveillance might not be accomplished correctly because of inaccurate energy estimations.This paper describes a battery-aware model for an accurate analysis of the drone energy consumption; this model is then applied to a scenario of drone delivery. Results show an accuracy greater of about 16% with respect to the traditional estimation model.