CONCEPTUAL AND AERODYNAMIC DESIGN OF A UAV FOR SUPERFICIAL VOLCANO MONITORING

摘要

Unmanned systems have ideal characteristics to recognize areas of difficult access, performing missions that could not be made with traditional manned aircraft. Hence, nowadays, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) technology has improved considerably.One of the main drawbacks in the monitoring of an active volcano is the inability to fly between a large gas plumes due to the possible entrance of volcanic ash into the aircraft engine.Accordingly, the physical risk of pilots and scientist that investigate volcanoes aboard of an aircraft is great, if an unexpected event occurs.Under these limitations, a UAV design is proposed for superficial volcano monitoring, with the mission to transmit real time data to a remote location, preventing the exposition of people to these flight conditions.The conceptual design process was carried out with the implementation of a parametric study, using statistical entropy and constraint analysis, in order to determine the minimum value of wing area and thrust required to perform the mission. For the aerodynamic design, analytical studies were developed, through the determination of the aerodynamics, performance and longitudinal stability characteristics.Finally, the aerodynamic coefficients of the wing and the full configuration were evaluated with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. The numerical results are greatly similar in the lift (CL), drag (CD) and moment (CM) coefficients, when these are compared with the analytical results. Consequently, the results show, on a large scale, as would be the aerodynamic behavior of the UAV performing the established mission.