Wake Encounter Simulation and Flight Validation with UAV Close Formation Flight

摘要

In this paper, HawkWakeSim, a novel UAV wake encounter simulation platform, is presented with coupled modeling of aerodynamics and flight dynamics. Unlike conventional aircraft simulation models where aerodynamic coefficients are identified from flight test data, HawkWakeSim uses results from computational fluid dynamics calculations and updates the aerodynamic coefficients at each time step, which eliminates the errors from linearization. Several wake encounter scenarios with different lateral encounter angles and following clearances are simulated and investigated. The aircraft responses in one of the simulated scenarios are compared with experimental data obtained from a UAV close formation flight Results from HawkWakeSim match the overall trend of flight test results, which show its effectiveness. Additionally, aircraft responses during wake encounters under different control configurations are simulated and analyzed.