Towards Energy Consumption Prediction with Safety Margins for Multicopter Systems
Thomas Dietrich, Silvia Krug, Thomas K. Hotz, Armin Zimmermann · 2017
Multicopters are robotic systems with a remarkable degree of freedom and applicability. A significant limitation of all mobile robotic vehicles is the restricted on-board energy storage capacity and consequential limited operation time. Uninterrupted mission execution of multicopter swarms thus requires to predict energy depletion and plan maintenance and replacement processes accordingly. This paper presents and discusses challenges of a realistic prediction model for battery energy consumption. To cope with the inherent uncertainty we are interested not only in the expected values, but also safety margins. The paper discusses common expectations first and presents a solution idea for the underlying key issue.