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With the progress and development of Coandă Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) to date, various configurations have been proposed and developed. For the purpose of designing a Micro Air Vehicle (MAV), that could meet the desired mission and design requirements and can operate effectively in various environmental conditions, a workable theoretical analysis is to be developed. With such motivation, capitalizing on the basic fundamental principles, the aerodynamic forces acting on Coandă MAV configurations are revisited and analysed on the bases of the Fluid Dynamics and Flight Mechanics of a semi-spherical Coandă MAV configuration. The major objective of this paper is to analyse the forces and moments acting on the Coandă MAV as related to the geometry, flow, and motion parameters, using mathematical modelling. The mathematical model and derived performance measures in hover and translatory motion are shown to be capable in describing the physical phenomena of the flow field of the semi-spherical Coandă MAV. Results obtained are assessed and considered viable for preliminary design of such air vehicles and further elaborated development, including more flight dynamic manoeuvres.

Coandă effect, which has been widely utilized in many engineering applications for circulation control, is here reviewed for the design of Coandă Micro-Air-Vehicles (MAVs). Based on the review, a basic spherical configuration is analyzed to obtain the relationship between relevant parameters to the lift that can be produced based on fundamental principles. The results can be used for preliminary design purposes and are discussed in view of existing literature.

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to reformulate the governing equations incorporating major variables and parameters for the design a Micro Air Vehicle (MAV), to meet the desired mission and design requirements. Design/methodology/approach-Mathematical models for various spherical and cylindrical Coanda˘ MAV configurations were rederived from first principles, and the performance measures were defined. To verify the theoretical prediction to a certain extent, a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation for a Coanda˘ MAV generic models was performed. Findings-The major variables and parameters of Coanda˘ MAV have been formulated into practical guidelines, which relate the lift (or thrust) produced for certain input variables, particularly the Coanda˘ MAV jet momentum coefficient. The influences of the geometrical parameters are elaborated. Research limitations/implications-The present analysis on Coanda˘ jet-configured MAV is focused on the lift generation due to the Coanda˘ jet effect through a meticulous analysis. The effects of viscosity, the Coanda˘ jet thickness, the radius of curvature of the surface and the stability of Coanda˘ jet are not considered and will be the subject of the following work. Practical implications-The results obtained can be used for sizing in the preliminary design of Coanda˘ MAVs. Originality/value-Physical and mathematical models were developed which can describe the physical phenomena of the flow field near the Coanda˘ MAV surfaces influenced by Coanda˘ jet sheets and for obtaining a relationship between relevant variables and parameters to the lift of practical interest.

With the progress of solar sail interplanetary travel in the last two decades, various concepts and technologies have been developed. To that end, two means of sailing, Solar Sail and Electric Sail, will be discussed. The capabilities as well as performance aspects of both technologies will be compared by studying different generic missions such as escape orbit and local optimizations of orbital parameters.