Design and Experimental Investigation of a Small UAV

In this paper two different tools have been applied to the problem of designing a small UAV. With these tools a parametric study of wing configuration and sizing was performed. The focus of this study was to optimize range and endurance of the UAV during a particular flight mission. The two numerical analysis tools applied to the UAV wing design were developed for widely different analysis problems. The first tool, the aircraft DATCOM was developed for the preliminary design analysis of manned aircraft and will be used to perform parametric modeling and geometry optimization. The Projectile Rocket Ordinance Design and Analysis System (PRODAS^®) software was developed for ballistic projectiles and will be used for 6 DOF fixed plane trajectory simulation of the developed UAV concepts. While the scale of the UAV selected does not match well with the DATCOM software, the mission requirements and analysis format of the software is advantageous. Conversely, the scale of the problem matches the PRODAS software much better, while modeling a small UAV as a ballistic projectile holds limitations. To complete the parametric study it is helpful to validate the results of the two numerical analysis tools. The development and testing of a wind tunnel prototype can provide basic validation of the numerical analysis.