Overview of Prototype Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Research & Development Program in Royal Thai Airforce Academy

Abstract

With past experiences in design & development of prototype unmanned aircraft for department of defence and years of individual research in flight systems and payloads, the lectures and researcher of the Royal Thai Air Force Academy teamed up for design and development of small prototype unmanned aerial vehicle. Groups of lectures and researcher in specific specialties will be assigned in teams in order to set-up the systematic and effective R7D teams. Work-breakdown structure is set in order to define job descriptions and data flow between teams. The design is driven by the mission requirements in close-range tactical surveillance based on the experiences and knowledge of the successfully platform design. All lessons learned form the past are carefully reviewed and listed as required design features. Every resources and equipments in the Royal Thai Airforce Academy will be used for the design, analysis and testing of the prototype aircraft including Subsonic Research Wind Tunnel (SRWT), aircraft structural test rig and Engineering Flight Simulator (EFS) to obtain valuable data collaborating with the flight test data for further development phase in the future.