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Aerodynamic analysis of upper surface wing morphing efficiency for the S4 Éhecatl unmanned aerial system

Sugar-Gabor, O; Koreanschi, A; Botez, RM

Authors

A Koreanschi

RM Botez



Abstract

This paper investigates the aerodynamic performance improvement of the Hydra Technologies S4 Unmanned Aerial System using a morphing wing concept. A part of the wing's upper surface is morphed, as function of the flight condition, in order to increase the S4's lift-to-drag ratio. The wing airfoil shape optimizations are performed using a hybrid Artificial Bee Colony and Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno algorithm, coupled to a two-dimensional viscous flow solver. The wing geometries are reconstructed based on the morphed airfoils, and three-dimensional computations are performed, including the effects of the fuselage and tail, using a panel method. The viscous drag is estimated using strip theory, empirical and experimental approximations. The optimizations and three-dimensional results are obtained for fifteen flight conditions, corresponding to cruise and surveillance flights at various altitudes. Comparisons are made between the original and morphed geometries, and identify the conditions for which significant lift-to-drag ratio improvements are obtained using the upper surface morphing concept.

Citation

Sugar-Gabor, O., Koreanschi, A., & Botez, R. (2016). Aerodynamic analysis of upper surface wing morphing efficiency for the S4 Éhecatl unmanned aerial system. In Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), 2016 International Conference on 7-10 June 2016 (185-194). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICUAS.2016.7502530

Publication Date Jul 4, 2016
Deposit Date Mar 10, 2017
Pages 185-194
Book Title Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), 2016 International Conference on 7-10 June 2016
ISBN 9781467393348
DOI https://doi.org/10.1109/ICUAS.2016.7502530
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICUAS.2016.7502530
Additional Information Event Type : Conference