Conceptual Design of a Long-Endurance, Tilt-Boom Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Author(s):  
Gilbert Crouse ◽  
Tom Sash
2021 ◽  
Vol 1173 (1) ◽  
pp. 012055
Author(s):  
M A Moelyadi ◽  
M A Sulthoni ◽  
M F Zulkarnain ◽  
M F Akbar ◽  
B K Assakandari

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Zhao ◽  
Zhou Zhou ◽  
Xiaoping Zhu ◽  
An Guo

This paper describes our work on a small, hand-launched, solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) suitable for low temperatures and high altitudes, which has the perpetual flight potential for conservation missions for rare animals in the plateau area in winter. Firstly, the conceptual design method of a small, solar-powered UAV based on energy balance is proposed, which is suitable for flight in high-altitude and low-temperature area. The solar irradiance model, which can reflect the geographical location and time, was used. Based on the low-temperature discharge test of the battery, a battery weight model considering the influence of low temperature on the battery performance was proposed. Secondly, this paper introduces the detailed design of solar UAV for plateau area, including layout design, structure design, load, and avionics. To increase the proportion of solar cells covered, the ailerons were removed and a rudder was used to control both roll and yaw. Then, the dynamics model of an aileron-free layout UAV was developed, and the differences in maneuverability and stability of aileron-free UAV in plateau and plain areas were analyzed. The control law and trajectory tracking control law were designed for the aileron-free UAV. Finally, the flight test was conducted in Qiangtang, Tibet, at an altitude of 4500 m, China’s first solar-powered UAV to take off and land above 4500 m on the plateau in winter (−30 °C). The test data showed the success of the scheme, validated the conceptual design method and the success of the control system for aileron-free UAV, and analyzed the feasibility of perpetual flight carrying different loads according to the flight energy consumption data.


Author(s):  
M.K. Padmanabhan ◽  
G. Santhoshkumar ◽  
Praveen Narayan ◽  
N. Jeevaraj ◽  
M. Dinesh ◽  
...  

There are various configurations and parameters that contribute to the Design of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for specific applications. This paper deals with an innovative design of an unmanned aerial vehicle for a specified class of UAVs that require demands such as long endurance, minimized landing space with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capabilities. The focal point of this design is superimposing the high endurance blended wing design into tri-copter to address these parameters. The preliminary calculations are initially performed for the blended wing VTOL vehicle based on the required payload capacity and endurance. Superimposing the tri-copter will decrease the aerodynamic efficiency of the vehicle. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve complex problems involving fluid flow which will effectively employed to reduce the cost and time during the conceptual and preliminary design stages. CFD analysis was carried out to estimate the major parameters like lift, drag, lift coefficient (CL) and drag coefficient (CD) for various Angle of Attack (AoA) for configurations of blended wing vehicle with and without tri-copter system in the cruise condition. Thus, the vehicle design and propulsion system is effectively optimized using this drag estimation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 172988141877993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rong Wang ◽  
Zhi Xiong ◽  
Jianye Liu ◽  
Yuxuan Cao

In high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles, a celestial attitude determination system is used to enhance the inertial navigation system (INS)/global positioning system (GPS) to achieve the required attitude performance. The traditional federal filter is not applicable for INS/GPS/celestial attitude determination system information fusion because it does not consider the mutually coupled relationship between the horizontal reference error in the celestial attitude determination system and the navigation error; this limitation results in reduced navigation accuracy. This article proposes a novel stepwise fusion algorithm with dual correction for multi-sensor navigation. Considering the horizontal reference error, the celestial attitude determination system measurement model is constructed and the issues involved in applying the federal filter are discussed. Then, preliminary error estimation and horizontal reference compensation are added to the navigation architecture. In addition, a sequential update strategy is derived to estimate the attitude error with the compensated celestial attitude determination system based on the preliminary estimation. A stepwise correction filtering algorithm with interactive preliminary and sequential updates that can effectively fuse celestial attitude determination system measurements with the INS/GPS is constructed. High-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle navigation in a remote sensing task is simulated to verify the performance of the proposed method. The simulation results demonstrate that the horizontal reference error is effectively compensated, and the attitude accuracy is significantly improved after stepwise error estimation and correction. The proposed method also provides a novel multi-sensor integrated navigation architecture with mutually coupled errors; this architecture is beneficial in unmanned aerial vehicle navigation applications.


1999 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zdobysław Goraj ◽  
Andrzej Frydrychiewicz ◽  
Jacek Winiecki

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