Design of an Unconventional Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (SAE Paper 2021-01-0006)

The need for improvement in aircraft performance with high payload carrying capacity has provided the motivation for consideration of an Unconventional Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) design concept in order to perform tasks like payload delivery, humanitarian aid & disaster relief and surveillance. Through this research, we were able to investigate the reduction in drag due to airfoil-shaped fuselage, increased thrust due to dual motor configuration acting puller-pusher and increased lift to drag ratio due to wing twist for better payload fraction which are as well unconventional features of our design. We used XFLR, airfoil tools & flight dynamics equations to define aerodynamic constraints which are verified through numerical study in ANSYS using ICEM CFD. Methodology also involves repetitive structural analysis using Finite element analysis which were validated through practical testing. Accordingly, the electronic components were selected based on required thrust & overall weight and finally it is simulated in MATLAB. From the results obtained at the preliminary stage, it has a higher value of CL/CD ratio by 10.412 % and implicating that there is a significant reduction in drag by 11.858 %. After drag analysis, we were also able to conclude that the airfoil shaped fuselage has 80.412 % lesser drag than the conventional fuselage design for a UAV. Further at the secondary stage, modifications were done with respect to the design to make it more practically viable, and after testing we were definitively able to conclude that the payload lifting capacity of our aircraft is thrice the structural weight. Dual motor configuration provides more efficient thrust and inverted H-tail provides more controllability in case of downwash. This proves our design to be more efficient due to reduced drag and stall characteristics. This design is currently deployed to deliver, transport and logistics service for pharmaceuticals under ford fund COVID-19 initiative.