Optimisation Studies for an Efficient Aerodynamic Configuration of a Blended Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Abstract

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.