Aerodynamics of Landing Maneuvering of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in Close Proximity to a Ground Vehicle

Autonomous takeoff and landing maneuvers of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from/on a moving ground vehicle (GV) have been an area of active research for the past several years. For military missions requiring repeated flight operations of the UAV, precise landing ability is important for autonomous docking into a recharging station, since such stations are often mounted on a ground vehicle. The development of precise and efficient control algorithms for this autonomous maneuvering has two key challenges; one is related to flight aerodynamics and the other is related to a precise detection of the landing zone. The aerodynamic challenges include understanding the complex interaction of the flows over the UAV and GV, potential ground effects at the proximity of the landing surface, and the impact of the variations in the surrounding wind flow and ambient conditions. While a large body of work in this area can be found on the control aspect of the UAV landing and takeoff maneuvers, research on the aerodynamic aspects of such maneuvers is non-existent. This paper presents an in-depth computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based aerodynamic characterization of the transient flow fields associated with the landing of a hobby-model quadcopter (the UAV) on an idealized road vehicle (the GV), the 35-degree slant angle Ahmed body. Transient improved delayed detached eddy simulations (IDDES) are carried out using the commercial CFD code STAR-CCM+. Our study indicates that the pressure field is the first flow property that gets impacted by the proximity of the UAV to the GV.