Design and testing of three tailless unmanned aerial vehicle configurations built for surveillance in Antarctic environment

Abstract

The tailless fixed-wing aircraft have a very compact design and therefore are very attractive as portable unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms. There is a special need for using such platforms in case of operations in such backlands as Antarctica, because very often the equipment necessary for preparing improvised airfields near Antarctic scientific bases and organizing the UAV flights must be hand-carried. The main aim of this paper is to present the design activity and testing of a number of UAV configurations to be used for aerial monitoring in Antarctic areas and collecting data of local ecosystems. Two UAV flying-wing platforms-MONICA-1 and MONICA-2-were developed, differing largely with respect to wing-loading and weight-to-power ratios. The lightweight Skywalker X-8 built from the kit and used as a baseline configuration was adapted for special photogrammetric missions. It was found that the main advantage of such light UAV consists in a very simple takeoff system (i.e. bungee), however due to low wing loading a usage of this UAV is limited to the so-called 'weather windows' of relatively low wind, which do not frequently occur in Antarctica. MONICA-1 is much less sensitive to gust but as a heavy platform it is more difficult to handle in harsh Antarctic environment. To be able to operate in much wider range of the wind, vertical gust and heavy turbulence, typical for Antarctic zones, a special UAV platform-called MONICA-2-was designed and manufactured. MONICA-2 platform of higher wing loading is smaller than the X-8 and at the same time is able to carry the same photogrammetry equipment. The effort of designers focused on achieving low sensitivity to gust and turbulence by increasing the critical angle of attack and natural static and dynamic stability in the whole range of operational speeds. The paper contains the selected design details and some observations from the flight tests.

Flow Field Investigation of a Blended Wing Body in Low Speeds

“…Experimental analysis conducted by Yamada et al (2019) in a low-speed tunnel at a free stream velocity of 18m/s indicated that the use of gurney flaps on the BWB configurations generated a pair of counter-rotating vortices and also improved the lift locally. Several BWBs under the prototyping stage are reported by Thompson et al (2011), Becker and Sheffler (2016), Rodzewicz et al (2018), Footohi et al (2019), Naeini et al (2019Naeini et al ( , 2021) and many others.…”

Precision Landing Tests of Tethered Multicopter and VTOL UAV on Moving Landing Pad on a Lake

“…The latter applications are particularly interesting, because they often require the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to start and end an air operation on a vessel [ 4 ]. This is especially important when UAV air operations take place far from the shoreline, e.g., in search and rescue operations or environmental or threat monitoring [ 5 , 6 ].…”

Animal detection using thermal imaging and a UAV

“…In this case, the designers' efforts were focused on achieving low sensitivity to wind gust and turbulence (Goraj, 2014 as cited in Rodzewicz et al, 2018). To achieve this point, it was necessary to design an aircraft capable of operating at a wide range of angles of attack (Rodzewicz et al, 2018). UAV's missions can be effective provided if performed properlyscientists should correctly choose the size, shape and configuration of the aircraft and pay attention to altitude, speed, direction and flight limits in such a way as to minimize stress for wild animals (Drever et al, 2015;Junda et al, 2016;McEvoy et al, 2016;Wich and Pin, 2018).…”

“…When designing or selecting a UAV to perform a given task, designers should take into account not only their aerodynamics and performance but also its compactness. For example, Rodzewicz et al (2018), during the design and testing of UAVs to be used in the MONICA project, decided to use a lighter UAV of reduced performance (shorter endurance). Very often not only aerodynamics and performance must be analysed.…”

“…UAVs have been tested in much more difficult weather conditions than typical conditions for Poland. Already fixed-wing UAVs have been used in more severe weather conditions of Antarctica (Rodzewicz et al , 2018). In this case, the designers’ efforts were focused on achieving low sensitivity to wind gust and turbulence (Goraj, 2014 as cited in Rodzewicz et al , 2018).…”