Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
AIAA Scitech Forum, 2019, California, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri, 7 - 11 Ocak 2019, (Tam Metin Bildiri)
Dynamic soaring is a flying technique to acquire energy from the atmospheric wind shear, which in case of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has been confined to fixed configurations only. This paper investigates autonomous dynamic soaring maneuvers for a bio-inspired small UAV, which can modify platform configuration through variations in the wingspan. To quantify the benefits achieved through morphing, the optimal soaring trajectories of morphing UAV are compared against fixed span configurations. Three-dimensional point-mass UAV equations of motion and logarithmic wind gradient profile are used to model flight dynamics. Results presented in this paper, indicate 15% lesser wind shear requirement by morphing platform in comparison to their fixed-wing counterparts. This shows that the morphing UAV can perform dynamic soaring in an environment, where fixed configuration UAVs can not, because of lesser wind shear. Apart from this, span morphology reduced drag by 15%, lift requirement by 11% and angle of attack requirement by 20%, whereas increasing the maximum velocity by 6.2%, normalized energies by 9% and improved loitering parameters (approx 10%). The results achieved from this study strongly support the concept of integrating dynamic soaring under morphing conditions and its potential benefits. It is imperative that this investigation will serve as a baseline for the proof of concept that dynamic soaring can be extended to a morphing platform.