Investigation of Performance, Noise, and Detectability Characteristics of Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) Propellers

摘要

Several small-scale propeller configurations applicable to a conceptual Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) aircraft were designed, fabricated, and tested to determine their performance, acoustic, and detectability characteristics. The tests were conducted in static and simulated forward flight conditions in a wind tunnel. Propellers tested included tractor, pusher, and ducted configurations. The acoustic data obtained was used to determine the slant range and altitude of no detection of each propeller configuration. The data was analyzed to determine the effects of blade number, blade design (activity factor and twist), diameter, tip speed, thrust, and forward velocity on the acoustic and detectability characteristics of the propeller configurations tested. The performance data did not show any conclusive trends except that the ducted and pusher propeller configurations tested were less efficient than their open and tractor counterparts respectively.