Conventional UAV Research Articles

Investigation on Aerodynamic Configuration of Monitoring Long Endurance UAV

In recent years, monitoring long endurance UAV is widely used in civil fields such as earthquake relief, it has certain particularities in comparison with conventional UAV; this paper studied and summarized its key technologies in aerodynamic configuration. The research of aerodynamic configuration is based on a general scheme, research indicates that: (1) monitoring long endurance UAV has the characteristics of low-Reynolds number, so laminar airfoil is needed to increase lift-drag ratio; induced drag can be reduced by optimizing wing twist angle; (2) subsection control surface and new design method on flight-quality would improve control reliability and flight quality, which are indispensable for the UAV to guarantee safety in bad weather condition; (3) take-off/landing/taxiing performance should be considered in order to improve the runway adaptability of the UAV.

비틀림 비선형성을 갖는 2차원 익형의 모델링 및 Bifurcation 해석

Recent developments for high altitude, long endurance conventional UAVs(HALE UAVs) have revealed new issues regarding aircraft structure design and analysis. First of all, due to intensive mission requirements, the structures of HALE UAVs have lightweight and very flexible main wing with high aspect ratio, and slender fuselage. For this kind of structures, aeroelastic characteristics are different from conventional aircrafts. Hence, currently developed analysis methods are not suitable to fully understand strucutral dynamics of the very flexible aircraft, and to guarantee structural reliability. Therefore, various structural studies considering nonlinear behaviors which are generally ignored for the conventional aircraft strucutral analyis have been attracting researchers interests. Nonlinear flutter of the very flexible wing is one of the subject to be studied in combination with strong coupling between aeroelastic characteristics and flight dynamics. Herein, as preliminary study, modeling and nonlinear system analysis of the 2D airfoild with torsional nonlinearity have been discussed.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FAMILY OF LIGHTWEIGHT AND WIDE SWATH UAV CAMERA SYSTEMS AROUND AN INNOVATIVE DUAL-SENSOR ON-SINGLE-CHIP DETECTOR

Abstract. Together with a Belgian industrial consortium VITO has developed the lightweight camera system MEDUSA. It combines high spatial resolution with a wide swath to support missions for large scale mapping and disaster monitoring applications. MEDUSA has been designed to be operated on a solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle flying in the stratosphere. The camera system contains a custom designed CMOS imager with 2 sensors (each having 10000 × 1200 pixels) on 1 chip. One sensor is panchromatic, one is equipped with colour filters. The MEDUSA flight model camera has passed an extensive test campaign and is ready to conduct its maiden flight. First airborne test flights with an engineering model version of the camera have been executed to validate the functionality and the performance of the camera. An image stitching work flow has been developed in order to generate an image composite in near real time of the acquired images. The unique properties of the dual-sensor-on-single-chip detector triggered the development of 2 new camera designs which are currently in preparation. MEDUSA-low is a modified camera system optimised for compatibility with more conventional UAV systems with a payload capacity of 5–10 kg flying at an altitude around 1 km. Its camera acquires both panchromatic and colour images. The MEDUSA geospectral camera is an innovative hyperspectral imager which is equipped with a spatially varying spectral filter installed in front of one of the two sensors. It acquires both hyperspectral and broad band high spatial resolution image data from one and the same camera.

The Design and Implementation of Hexa-Rotor Aerial Robot

Today, when the robot technology is booming, various sensors and intelligent functions that applied in robots can be transferred and applied to the unmanned aerial robot. It will make the unmanned aerial robot not an ordinary UAV any longer, but an intelligent robot that can fly. Conventional UAVs are not well suited for use in confined spaces, such as small passageways or indoor halls, e.t.c. The multi-rotor copters have the vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) ability for indoor flight. The most popular research topics for multi-rotor copters are Quad- copter and Hexa-copter. The objective of this research is to design and build a hexa-rotor aerial robot. We used AVR microcontroller as the flight control system, and use three-axis gyroscope and three-axis accelerometer for attitude sensing of the aerial robot; the flight altitude is estimated with barometric altimeter; the closed loop control of the aerial robot is carried out with PID control to meet the requirements, such as self-balancing, hovering and etc. Multi-sensors had been applied to the hexa-rotor aerial robot, and verified the feasibility with experiments. A universal test platform was designed to test the stability and balance of the Hexa-rotor aerial robot. An external force was applied on the aerial robot from pitch, roll and yaw direction, the aerial robot can return to self-balancing flight quickly. Finally, the hexa-rotor aerial robot can make a stable hovering during the outdoor test fly.

Modeling and Autopilot Design of Blended Wing-Body UAV

This paper describes the modeling and autopilot design procedure of a Blended Wing-Body(BWB) UAV. The BWB UAV is a tailless design that integrates the wing and the fuselage. This configuration shows some aerodynamic advantages of lower wetted area to volume ratio and lower interference drag as compared to conventional type UAV. Also, BWB UAV may be increase payload capacity and flight range. However, despite of these benefits, this type of UAV presents several problems related to flying qualities, stability, and control. In this paper, the detailed modeling procedure of BWB UAV and stability analysis results using the linearized model at trim condition are represented. Finally, we designed the autopilot of BWB UAV based on a simple control allocation scheme and evaluated its performance through nonlinear simulation.

A military perspective on small unmanned aerial vehicles

In recent years, advancements in three technology areas, microelectronics, MEMS sensors, and GPS receivers, have allowed small UAVs to overcome critical deficiencies and become practical for insertion into the military mainstream. The maturation and commercialization of these technologies have resulted in readily available components that have decreased in both size and cost, to the point where truly low-cost, highly capable, small UAVs are possible. In particular, inertial devices such as MEMS accelerometers and angular rate sensors, pressure sensors, and magnetometers have reached the point where they are reliable, accurate, and affordable. These devices allow the determination of vehicle state with the precision required to enable autonomous flight. In addition, advanced microelectronic devices, such as digital signal processors, field programmable gate arrays, and microcontrollers have enabled sophisticated flight control functions, including fully autonomous flight using GPS waypoints. In combination, these advances have allowed small UAVs such as Pointer, Raven, and Dragon Eye to move into full-scale production and continue to allow the progression of UAVs into smaller and smaller packages. To address several of the deployment issues connected with small UAVs, a gun-launched version, along with the underpinning technologies, is under development. This device represents a clear departure from conventional UAVs with several clear advantages; however, it also contains severe design challenges, as well as test and evaluation dilemmas. An option of this type is envisioned not as a replacement for conventional small UAVs but rather as an augmenting capability.