A Alsahlani
Design of a high altitude long endurance flying-wing solar-powered unmanned air vehicle
Alsahlani, A; Johnston, LJ; Atcliffe, PA
Authors
LJ Johnston
PA Atcliffe
Abstract
The low-Reynolds number environment of high-altitude flight places severe demands on the aerodynamic design and stability and control of a high altitude, long endurance unmanned air vehicle (HALE UAV). The aerodynamic efficiency of a flying-wing configuration makes it an attractive design option for such an application and is investigated in the present work. The proposed configuration has a high-aspect ratio, swept-wing planform, the wing sweep being necessary to provide an adequate moment arm for outboard longitudinal and lateral control surfaces. A design optimization framework is developed under a MATLAB environment, combining aerodynamic, structural and stability analysis. Low-order analysis tools are employed to facilitate efficient computations, which is important when there are multiple optimization loops for the various engineering analyses. In particular, a vortex-lattice method is used to compute the wing planform aerodynamics, coupled to a two-dimensional panel method to derive aerofoil sectional characteristics. Integral boundary-layer methods are coupled to the panel method in order to predict flow separation boundaries during the design iterations. A quasi-analytical method is adapted for application to flying-wing configurations to predict the wing weight and a linear finite-beam element approach is used for structural analysis of the wing-box. Stability is a particular concern in the low-density environment of high-altitude flight for flying-wing aircraft and so provision of adequate directional stability and control power forms part of the optimization process. At present, a modified Genetic Algorithm is used in all of the optimization loops. Each of the low-order engineering analysis tools is validated using higher-order methods, to provide confidence in the use of these computationally-efficient tools in the present design-optimization framework.
This paper includes the results of employing the present optimization tools in the design of a high-altitude, long endurance, flying-wing unmanned air vehicle to indicate that this is a viable design configuration option.
Citation
Alsahlani, A., Johnston, L., & Atcliffe, P. (2017). Design of a high altitude long endurance flying-wing solar-powered unmanned air vehicle. https://doi.org/10.1051/eucass/201709003
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Publication Date | Jun 20, 2017 |
Deposit Date | Jun 22, 2017 |
Publicly Available Date | Jun 22, 2017 |
Journal | Progress in Flight Physics |
Publisher | EDP Sciences |
Volume | 9 |
Pages | 3-24 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/eucass/201709003 |
Publisher URL | https://doi.org/10.1051/eucass/201609003 |
Related Public URLs | https://www.eucass-proceedings.eu/articles/eucass/abs/2017/01/contents/contents.html |
Additional Information | Additional Information : EUCASS Proceedings, Progress in Flight Physics, Vol 9, ISBN 9785945882157 |
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