Conceptual Design Studies of an Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle

Abstract

An Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) is an aircraft that is expected to be used for delivering weapons autonomously. UCAV are extremely useful in the Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) missions to be carried out as a part of the first day strike missions. The study reported in this paper focuses on developing a methodology for carrying out conceptual sizing of a UCAV based on initial sizing, constraint analyses and refined sizing. The geometry for the UCAV is generated in terms of the sweeps for the various elements of leading and trailing edges, root chord and wing span. Two low fidelity aerodynamic analysis tools were coupled for aerodynamic analysis, after validating them against data reported in open literature. The sizing methodology was coupled to a Genetic Algorithm code to obtain a configuration meeting all specified mission requirements and minimum takeoff weight, meeting some user specified performance constraints. Five nondominated solutions on a Pareto front were also obtained using NSGA-II code for two conflicting objectives, viz., Takeoff length and Wingspan.