What is it about?
The design of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) used for military applications is dictated by their low- observability characteristics rather than the aerodynamic performance. Therefore, the UCAVs experience flow separation during takeoff and landing and exhibit stability issues. On the other hand, the wing design significantly influences the aerodynamic performance of the UCAV configurations. This research provides an initial weight estimate, aerodynamic sizing, planform selection, and then the conceptual design of a UCAV configuration. Also, the optimization of conceptual design using multi-fidelity surrogate models is provided and validated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results.
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Photo by Adam Bezer on Unsplash
Why is it important?
The conceptual design of present UCAVs lies between the fighter and the bomber. However, the configurations of UCAV are still under exploration and undergoing various developments, so the standard dimensions and shapes of the UCAV design have not been defined yet. Hence, assessing the conceptual configurations and their design are worthy issues that need to be investigated. This research discusses the preliminary conceptual design and optimization of a UCAV configuration with a non-constant leading-edge sweep angle. We conclude that the optimized configuration is superior to the reference design in terms of lift-to-drag ratio.
Perspectives
It was an excellent opportunity to present this paper at AIAA Aviation 2022 Forum. I hope this work will contribute to the field of UCAVs design!
Hassan Aleisa
University of Glasgow
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Conceptual Configuration of Non-Constant Sweep UCAV Concept, June 2022, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA),
DOI: 10.2514/6.2022-3374.
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