Optimal Propeller design for future HALE UAV

Abstract

The main roles of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) include: observation, surveillance, transportation, remote sensing and various security tasks. Improved, augmented type of UAVs are high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) aircraft capable and designed, as their name suggests, for lengthy flights at higher altitudes (which also usually implies subsonic cruising velocities). Different variants, in both size and applied technical solutions, have been tried. Common approach incorporates standard wing-fuselage-aft empennage configuration and propelled flight as the most efficient for the required speed range. The paper gives a brief overview of a preliminary aerodynamic analysis of the main lifting surfaces as well as a detailed description of the performed multi-objective optimization of the propeller capable of producing a sufficient amount of thrust at the cruising altitude and speed. Aerodynamic performances of the investigated propellers are estimated by a simple blade element momentum theory (BEMT). The chosen optimizing method, genetic algorithm (GA), is suitable for dealing with a large number of input variables.