Design and Analysis of UAV Profile for Agriculture and Surveying Application

Abstract

This study represents the aerodynamic design of an Unmanned aerial vehicle intended for surveillance or agriculture with a maximum take weight of 125 kg. Weight estimation and constraint analysis were done based on the Mission profile. Design of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) models were generated for three different configurations using CATIA V5R20 as a high wing, mid-wing, and low wing. Flow analysis was done for the above configurations at various angles of attack. ANSYS 15 was used for the flow Analysis. A Tetrahedron element meshed the model with the minimum required orthogonal quality. Five microns were given to the initial layer height of the prism mesh. Spalart Allmaras model is used as the Turbulence model in the solver. The aerodynamic characteristics of the above configuration obtained from Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) results were compared with the DATCOM program and validated with the wind tunnel experimental test data. The open-circuited suction-type Subsonic wind tunnel was employed for the test. The aerodynamic properties for the angle of attack in the range of -2° to 14° angle of attack are calculated using a six-component balance. The study aims to find the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) configuration based on the aerodynamic characteristics obtained from the CFD and DATCOM results. High-wing UAVs have better aerodynamic efficiency than the other two configurations.