The Design of an Uninhabited Air Vehicle for Use in Polar Research

This paper describes the development of an uninhabited air vehicle that will primarily be used to measure changes in glacial conditions in Antarctica and Greenland. This includes documentation of the requirements definition and preliminary configuration design of three concept configurations. The goal of this effort is to design an aircraft capable of autonomous operation in extreme climates that can carry various sensors including radar depth sounders and gravimeters. The three aircraft configuration designs developed are compared with regard to performance, size, payload integration, as well as other measures of merit.