Preliminary design of a small-sized flapping UAV. II. Aerodynamic Performance and Flight Stability

In this work, we present the preliminary design of a biologically inspired flapping UAV. Starting from a set of initial design specifications, namely: weight, maximum flapping frequency and the minimum hand-launch velocity of the model; we conduct a wide numerical study of the proposed avian model in terms of the aerodynamic performance and flight stability in flapping and gliding conditions. The model shape, size and flight conditions are chosen to approximate those of a seagull. Additionally, an extensive study is conducted in order to dissect the kinematics of the wings, where starting from the simplest wing kinematics we keep on adding more degrees of freedom and control parameters until reaching a functional and realistic wing kinematics. The results give us an initial insight of the aerodynamic performance and flight stability of a biomimetic flapping UAV designed at minimum flight velocity and maximum flapping frequency.