Design Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Research Articles

Route Planning and Monitoring Design of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Based on Global Particle Algorithm

Route Planning and Monitoring Design of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Based on Global Particle Algorithm

A review on communication protocols for autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles for inspection application

The communication system is a critical part of the system design for the autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). It has to address different considerations, including efficiency, reliability and mobility of the UAV. In addition, a multi-UAV system requires a communication system to assist information sharing, task allocation and collaboration in a team of UAVs. In this paper, we review communication solutions for supporting a team of UAVs while considering an application in the power line inspection industry. We provide a review of candidate wireless communication technologies for supporting communication in UAV applications. Performance measurements and UAV-related channel modeling of those candidate technologies are reviewed. A discussion of current technologies for building UAV mesh networks is presented. We then analyze the structure, interface and performance of robotic communication middleware, ROS and ROS2. Based on our review, the features and dependencies of candidate solutions in each layer of the communication system are presented.

Bioinspired Feathered Flapping Wing UAV Design for Operation in Gusty Environment

The flight of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has numerous associated challenges. Small size is the major reason of their sensitivity towards turbulence restraining them from stable flight. Turbulence alleviation strategies of birds have been explored in recent past in detail to sort out this issue. Besides using primary and secondary feathers, birds also utilize covert feathers deflection to mitigate turbulence. Motivated from covert feathers of birds, this paper presents biologically inspired gust mitigation system (GMS) for a flapping wing UAV (FUAV). GMS consists of electromechanical (EM) covert feathers that sense the incoming gust and mitigate it through deflection of these feathers. A multibody model of gust-mitigating FUAV is developed appending models of the subsystems including rigid body, propulsion system, flapping mechanism, and GMS-installed wings using bond graph modeling approach. FUAV without GMS and FUAV with the proposed GMS integrated in it are simulated in the presence of vertical gust, and results’ comparison proves the efficacy of the proposed design. Furthermore, agreement between experimental results and present results validates the accuracy of the proposed design and developed model.

Camouflaged people detection based on a semi-supervised search identification network

Automated detection of military people based on the images in different environments plays an important role in accurately completing military missions. With the equipment gradually moving towards intelligence, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will be widely used for integrated reconnaissance/attack in the future. The lightweight and compact design of the small UAV allows it to travel through dense forests and other environments to capture images with its convenient mobility. However, as the camouflage has been designed to blend in with surroundings, which greatly reduces the probability of the target being discovered. Moreover, the lack of training data on camouflaged people detection will inhibit the training of a deep model. To address these problems, a novel semi-supervised camouflaged military people detection network is proposed to automatically detect the target from the images. In this paper, the camouflaged object detection dataset (COD10K) is first supplemented according to our mission requirements, then the edge attention is utilized to enhance the boundaries based on search identification network. Further, a semi-supervised learning strategy is presented to take advantage of the unlabeled data which can alleviate insufficient data and improve the detection accuracy. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed semi-supervised search identification network (Semi-SINet) performs well in camouflaged people detection compared with other object detection methods.

Conceptual Design and Multi-Disciplinary Computational Investigations of Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Environmental Applications

This study focuses on establishing a conceptual design for a multirotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The objectives of this octocopter are to reduce the number of flight cancelations and car accidents owing to low-visibility issues and to improve abnormal environmental conditions due to the presence of smoke. The proposed octocopter contains a convergent–divergent [CD] duct-based storage tank, which provides a platform to store saltwater and allows it to fly in foggy zones. Fine saltwater is sprayed from the octocopter and dispersed into the low clouds, thereby altering the vapor’s microphysical processes to break it up and improve visibility. The nature of the seawater and its enhanced fluid properties, due to the involvement of octocopter, creates the fluid flow mixing between atmospheric fluids and spraying particles, which increases the settling of foggy and smokey content groundward. For deployment, the conceptual design of the octocopter was initially constructed through analytical approaches. Additionally, three unique historical relationships were created. The standard engineering approaches involved in this work were stability analysis through MATLAB and fluid-property analysis through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) cum multiple reference frame (MRF) tools. The systematic model of this octocopter was developed by CATIA, and thereafter CFD and fluid–structure-interaction (FSI) analyses were computed, in ANSYS Workbench, on the octocopter for various environmental conditions. The aerodynamic forces on the drone, the enhancement of dynamic pressure by the presence of high amounts of rotors and nozzle sprayer, suitable material to resist aerodynamic loadings, and tests on the efficiency of the controller and its electronic components were investigated in detail. Finally, the proposed octocopter-based dynamic system was conceptually constructed.

Design, Analysis, and Testing of a Hybrid VTOL Tilt-Rotor UAV for Increased Endurance

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have slowly but steadily emerged as a research and commercial hotspot because of their widespread applications. Due to their agility, compact size, and ability to integrate multiple sensors, they are mostly sought for applications that require supplementing human effort in risky and monotonous missions. Despite all of these advantages, rotorcrafts, in general, are limited by their endurance and power-intensive flight requirements, which consequently affect the time of flight and operational range. On the other hand, fixed-wing aircrafts have an extended range, as the entire thrust force is along the direction of motion and are inherently more stable but are limited by their takeoff and landing strip requirements. One of the potential solutions to increase the endurance of VTOL rotorcrafts (Vertical Take-Off and Landing Vehicles) was to exploit the thrust vectoring ability of the individual actuators in multi-rotors, which would enable take-off and hovering as a VTOL vehicle and flight as a fixed-wing aircraft. The primary aim of this paper is to lay out the overall design process of a Hybrid VTOL tilt-rotor UAV from the initial conceptual sketch to the final fabricated prototype. The novelty of the design lies in achieving thrust vectoring capabilities in a fixed-wing platform with minimum actuation and no additional control complexity. This paper presents novel bi-copter that has been designed to perform as a hybrid configuration in both VTOL and fixed wing conditions with minimum actuators in comparison to existing designs. The unified dynamic modelling along with the approximation of multiple aerodynamic coefficients by numerical simulations is also presented. The overall conceptual design, dynamic modeling, computational simulation, and experimental analysis of the novel hybrid fixed-wing bi-copter with thrust vectoring capabilities aiming to substantially increase the flight range and endurance compared to the conventional aircraft rotorcraft configurations are presented.

Trends and prospects for the development and implementation of artificial intelligence in the military sphere in South Africa

The subject of this research is the trends and prospects for the development and implementation of artificial intelligence in the military sphere of one of the BRICS member-states – South Africa in the context of national acts (for example, the Law of 2008 “On the Right of Intellectual Property for State-Funded Research and Development”), the potential and needs of this country, as well as achievements in design and manufacturing of unmanned aerial vehicles by the competitor companies (Seeker 400, MA 380, etc.). The relevance of this topic is substantiated by timely consideration of the legal perspective of the approaches of South Africa towards the implementation of artificial intelligence. The scientific novelty of this article is defined by the focus of research and the acquired results. It is determined that South Africa takes the path of institutional, legal and practical consolidation of the development of artificial intelligence in form of creation of designated infrastructure (on the premises of the universities, for example, Intelligent Systems Group at the University of Pretoria), as startups, scientific network structures (Center for Artificial Intelligence Research), etc. It is demonstrated that South Africa is the manufacturer and seller of the line of unmanned aerial vehicles that are controlled by the artificial intelligence and capable of performing various civil or military tasks –  from moving cargo (including laser-guided bombs) to monitoring the territory (search and rescue or reconnaissance operations, damage assessment from natural disasters or combat operations, control conduct of fire at enemy positions, etc.).

CONSTRUCTION AND FLIGHT CHARACTERISTICS UNNAMED AERIAL VEHICLE s

This article presents information on the design and use of unmanned aerial vehicles with adescription of the design solutions of individual elements. The purpose of this work is to analyze the designof the UAV, review the main parts, analysis and comparison of technologies for measuring altitude andstabilization of drone flight, description of UAV control processes based on modified stabilization in airspace sensors and altitude regulators. Developments in the areas of height measurement and UAVstabilization are presented and described at the current time. The general design of a UAV based on a ISSN 2221-3805. Електротехнічні та комп’ютерні системи. 2021. №34 (110)Автоматизовані електромеханічні системиquadcopter is described. The existing variants of altitude sensors, which are necessary for drones of specialdesign, are considered. 3 existing systems are described - barometric, ultrasonic and visual positioning.RADAR, LIDAR and LADAR systems are among the systems that are not found on civil drones, because theyvery have a complex design and are quite expensive for simple drones. Possibilities of their use as UAValtitude sensors, advantages and disadvantages. RADAR systems is ToF systems, which measure time offlight transmission by electromagnetic waves. LIDAR and LADAR are optical height meters, which worksimilarly systems RADAR. Two variants of drone flight stabilization, use of regulators on the basis of neuralnetworks and traditional systems with the use of PID-regulators are considered. The work of such regulatorsis described, graphs are given, which show the difference between the set and real angles of deviation of thepitch and yaw, which allows to evaluate the advantages of using each of regulators.As a future study, the development of a prototype quadcopter for the study of the considered systems ofaltitude measurement and flight stabilization is envisaged. Building a mathematical model using sensors andregulators described here to study their real real behavior in the field. Integration of LADAR, LIDAR andRADAR systems as the additional measurement systemsones for special and civil UAVs

Model-Free-Based Single-Dimension Fuzzy SMC Design for Underactuated Quadrotor UAV

The underactuated quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is one of the nonlinear systems that have few actuators as compared to the degree of freedom (DOF); thus, it is a strenuous task to stabilize its attitude and positions. Moreover, an induction of unmodelled dynamic factors and uncertainties make it more difficult to control its maneuverability. In this paper, a model-free based single-dimension fuzzy sliding mode control (MFSDF-SMC) is proposed to control the attitude and positions of underactuated quadrotor UAV. The paper discusses the kinematic and dynamic models with unmodelled dynamic factors and unknown external disturbances. These unmodelled factors and disturbances may lead the quadrotor towards failure in tracking specific trajectory and may also generate some serious transient and steady-state issues. Furthermore, to avoid the problem of gimbal lock, the model is amalgamated with hyperbolic function to resolve the singularity issues dully developed due to Newton Euler’s dynamic modeling. The simulation results performed for MFSDF-SMC using MATLAB software R2020a are compared with conventional sliding mode control, fuzzy-based sliding control and single-dimension fuzzy-based sliding mode control without a model-free approach. The design and implementation of the model-free single dimension-based fuzzy sliding mode control (MFSDF-SMC) with an updated Lyapunov stability theorem is presented in this work. It is observed that MFSDF-SMC produces robust trajectory performance therefore, and the manuscript suggests the experimental setup to test the proposed algorithm in a noisy environment keeping the same conditions. The verification of the equipment used and its effective demonstration is also available for the reader within the manuscript.

A conceptual design of a solar powered UAV and assessment for continental climate flight conditions

ABSTRACT Solar energy is a source of alternative energy for fossil fuels. The importance of solar energy is due to its qualities. It is both unlimited and nondestructive to nature. It also has zero emissions and limitations unlike fossil fuels. In this study, the conceptual design of a solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), with six hours of endurance, is performed. An evaluation of the literature and powertrain architecture design is carried out. Components, such as solar panels, battery, and Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) are evaluated. The city of Eskisehir in Turkey is selected as a flight region with a continental climate. Flight environment and solar energy generation efficiency are investigated. Monthly sunshine times are calculated and compared with the semi empirically calculated power requirement of the UAV. It has been found that the UAV that is the subject of this study can achieve six hours of solar flight during the period between the fourth and the tenth months in Eskisehir, with 472.29 Wh of electrical energy required to be generated within a 1.084 m2 wing area.

Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Based 3D Trajectory Design in Aerial-Terrestrial Wireless Caching Networks

This paper investigates a dynamic 3D trajectory design of multiple cache-enabled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in a wireless device-to-device (D2D) caching network with the goal of maximizing the long-term network throughput. By storing popular content at the nearby mobile user devices, D2D caching is an efficient method to improve network throughput and alleviate backhaul burden. With the attractive features of high mobility and flexible deployment, UAVs have recently attracted significant attention as cache-enabled flying base stations. The use of cache-enabled UAVs opens up the possibility of tracking the mobility pattern of the corresponding users and serving them under limited cache storage capacity. However, it is challenging to determine the optimal UAV trajectory due to the dynamic environment with frequently changing network topology and the coexistence of aerial and terrestrial caching nodes. In response, we propose a novel multi-agent reinforcement learning based framework to determine the optimal 3D trajectory of each UAV in a distributed manner without a central coordinator. In the proposed method, multiple UAVs can cooperatively make flight decisions by sharing the gained experiences within a certain proximity to each other. Simulation results reveal that our algorithm outperforms the traditional single- and multi-agent Q-learning algorithms. This work confirms the feasibility and effectiveness of cache-enabled UAVs which serve as an important complement to terrestrial D2D caching nodes.

Design and development of autonomous amphibious unmanned aerial vehicle for in situ water quality assessment and water sampling

This paper presents the design and development of an autonomous amphibious unmanned aerial vehicle (AAUAV) system with hybrid version of a multicopter and a hovercraft that can vertically take-off and land as well as travel on water and smooth earth surfaces for water-based applications like water quality assessment, water sampling, remote sensing, underwater mapping, etc. Based on the conceptual design, parameters such as aircraft overall dimensions, weight estimation, aircraft performance, power requirement, and endurance of the UAV were calculated and evaluated. Using these computed parameters, a suitable propulsion system was selected. A 3D CAD model of the UAV was developed, and 2D manufacturing drawings were made. Finally, a prototype of the UAV was fabricated, assembled, and all the sub-systems were integrated. Initial trial runs were made to check the proper functioning of all sub-systems as intended. Subsequently, to verify and validate the UAV’s concept and design configuration, ground and field tests were conducted to test the vertical take-off and landing, flying, and amphibious capabilities of the developed unmanned system. Results of the tests have proven that a well-conceived design and development has been successfully completed.

Design of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for various wireless applications

This paper will incorporate a survey of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and associated problems and present important challenges. Drones have attracted a lot of attention because of their innumerable applications as they are highly movable and provide applications such as service delivery, farming, pollution mitigation, rescue operations. Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) which is one of the components of Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) are equipped with different IoT devices such as sensors, cameras, and actuators. They have a potential market because of their ubiquitous usability. They can be remotely controllable and regulating them in a well organized manner is a challenging task. Different communication technologies can be used such as Wi-Fi, WiMax, and Satellite Communication (SATCOM).

Evaluation of unmanned aerial vehicle tactics through the metrics of survivability

Aircraft survivability is a classical consideration of combat aircraft design and tactical development, but the fundamental model of aircraft survivability must be updated to be able to consider modern tactical scenarios that are applicable to unmanned aircraft. This paper seeks therefore to define the set of design tradeoffs and an evaluation of the tactical effectiveness for unmanned aircraft survivability. Traditional and modern survivability evaluation methods are presented and integrated into a computational simulation to create a probabilistic evaluation of unmanned aircraft survivability. The results demonstrate the development of design tradeoffs for a hypothetical unmanned C-130J Hercules against a single man-portable air defense system. The discussion focuses on the demonstration of the utility of this survivability evaluation framework for consideration of survivability in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) design, the utility of considering survivability in the design of multi-UAV configurations (including the loyal wingman and swarms), and the value of the probabilistic survivability model for multi-aircraft simulations.

Designing and producing a bird-inspired unmanned sailplane

PurposeIncreasing endurance was a very appropriate subject for the biomimetic approach. The study aims to design and manufacture a long-lasting mini unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) using active gliding and soaring.Design/methodology/approachThe endurance of mini UAVs is limited by battery or fuel capacity, and it is not always possible to increase these energy sources due to the fuselage size. Long endurance aircraft are required in various areas such as silent environment and traffic monitoring or search and rescue. Literature research on bird flight performance conducted to determine design parameters. These parameters are used in the theoretical design of the UAV for optimization. Computational fluid dynamics simulation and flight tests of the UAV performed to figure out the success of the design.FindingsFor a mini UAV to be produced in this class, it has been observed that it is more accurate to examine birds instead of gliders due to the size similarity. The UAV design reaches a 27.5 L/D (Glide ratio) ratio in the theoretical approach. However, flight results approved max L/D ratio is around 25 at the sea level. This flight performance is enough to outperform in glide ratio of Wandering albatrosses.Practical implicationsSailplanes are known as sport aircraft. However, recent projects focus on glider designs due to fuel efficiency and silent tracking. Stemme S-14 that carries a high-resolution camera is one of the examples of these projects. The unmanned glider design can lead to these implications in the UAVs at least during the stand-by period in the air. Thanks to low weight, UAVs do not require strong thermals, which allows flying almost all over the world.Originality/valueResearchers generally focus on increasing the battery capacity or the performance of the UAV. However, this study’s concentration is to increase the flight duration of the UAV by using geographical currents. For this purpose, taking advantage of bird morphology is quite a new topic. Also, glider type designs are rarely found in the field.

Joint Trajectory-Task-Cache Optimization With Phase-Shift Design of RIS-Assisted UAV for MEC

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can work as mobile edge computing (MEC) server in the sky to provide communication and computation services to ground terminals (GTs), due to its high mobility. However, UAV might work in complicated environment, where UAV-GT links being frequently blocked by ground obstacles, then leading to a poor quality of service (QoS) on task latency. To this problem, reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) can assist UAV and improve the wireless environment by reflecting the transmitted signals between the UAV and GTs. RIS-assisted UAV thus can have a greatly improved performance on mobile computing. Under this deployment, to maximize the energy-efficiency of the RIS-assisted UAV, this letter tries to study the joint optimization of UAV trajectory, task offloading and cache with the phase-shift design of the RIS. We intent to ultilize the successive convex approximation (SCA) method to solve the joint problem, which is non-convex in its original form. Numerical results show that the joint optimization can improve the performance of the RIS-assisted UAV, compared with the benchmark solutions.

Lightweight and maintainable rotary-wing UAV frame from configurable design to detailed design

Rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are widespread in both the military and civilian applications. However, there are still some problems for the UAV design such as the long design period, high manufacturing cost, and difficulty in maintenance. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel design method to obtain a lightweight and maintainable UAV frame from configurable design to detailed design. First, configurable design is implemented to determine the initial design domain of the UAV frame. Second, topology optimization method based on inertia relief theory is used to transform the initial geometric model into the UAV frame structure. Third, process design is considered to improve the manufacturability and maintainability of the UAV frame. Finally, dynamic drop test is used to validate the crashworthiness of the UAV frame. Therefore, a lightweight UAV frame structure composed of thin-walled parts can be obtained and the design period can be greatly reduced via the proposed method.

Propulsion Sizing Correlations for Electrical and Fuel Powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Despite the increasing demand of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for a wide range of civil applications, there are few methodologies for their initial sizing. Nowadays, classical methods, mainly developed for transport aircraft, have been adapted to UAVs. However, these tools are not always suitable because they do not fully adapt to the plethora of geometrical and propulsive configurations that the UAV sector represents. Therefore, this work provides series of correlations based on off-the-shelf components for the preliminary sizing of propulsion systems for UAVs. This study encompassed electric and fuel-powered propulsion systems, considering that they are the most used in the UAV industry and are the basis of novel architectures such as hybrid propulsion. For these systems, weight correlations were derived, and, depending on data availability, correlations regarding their geometry and energy consumption are also provided. Furthermore, a flowchart for the implementation of the correlations in the UAV design procedure and two practical examples are provided to highlight their usability. To summarize, the main contribution of this work is to provide parametric tools to size rapidly the propulsion system components, which can be embedded in a UAV design and optimization framework. This research complements other correlation studies for UAVs, where the initial sizing of the vehicle is discussed. The present correlations suit multiple UAV categories ranging from micro to Medium-Altitude-Long-Endurance (MALE) UAVs.

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

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.

Design and Control of a Novel Coaxial Tilt-Rotor UAV

In this article, the design and control of a new coaxial tilt-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (CTRUAV) are presented. The CTRUAV is an electric-powered unmanned aerial vehicle with a special configuration, which is composed of two pairs of tiltable coaxial rotors and a rear rotor. A CTRUAV prototype has been designed by 3-D computer-aided design software and constructed according to the designing scheme. The dynamic model of a CTRUAV is derived by utilizing the Euler–Lagrange equation, which considers the special features of the coaxial rotors and air drag forces on the CTRUAV. An adaptive controller is developed to realize motion control for the CTRUAV. The adaptive controller includes two subcontrollers: an inner-loop attitude controller and an outer-loop velocity controller. The stability of the resulting closed-loop CTRUAV system is analyzed via the Lyapunov method. Finally, several simulations and real experimental tests are implemented to validate the effectiveness of the developed CTRUAV system.