Studying aerodynamic interference of the unmanned aerial vehicles at the intervals and height variation in team flight

DOI: 10.34759/vst-2023-1-36-44

Аuthors

Golovnev A. V.^*, Voronko D. S.^**, Danilov S. M.^***

Air force academy named after professor N.E. Zhukovskii and Y.A. Gagarin, Voronezh, Russia

*e-mail: golovnyev@rambler.ru
**e-mail: zapasnoi.mir@mail.ru
***e-mail: dsm2291@gmail.com

Abstract

The article presents the study of the aircraft mutual effect while subsonic for-mation flight at minimum distances with account for the height and interval variation of the wingman relative to the lead aircraft. The issue on aerodynamic characteristics changing in the formation flight is up-to-date for many years. The trail aircraft movement in the wake vortex is known to lead to the wingman aerodynamic characteristics changing. The wake vortex impact on the aircraft and its subsequent disturbed motion depend on the whole number of factors such as aircraft performance characteristics and a flight mode of both wingman and lead aircraft, spatial position of the aircraft relative to each other and the state of the surrounding atmosphere. For this reason, the problems of flight safety while moving in a wake vortex after the lead aircraft emerge. However, the flight at minimum distances between the aircraft formation flight may incur the aerodynamic quality growth as well, which will allow increasing the flight range and duration. Determining optimal position between the lead aircraft and a wingman will allow meeting the controversy of the requirements in the formation flight. This is especially up-to-date for the highly automated flight control systems, which are being installed including the unmanned aerial vehicles. The study was being conducted using Solid Works, Numeca Hexpress and Ansys Fluent software packages. The article presents the dependencies of the parameters being studied, namely the lift and drag coefficients, the pitch, roll and yaw moments on the interval and height of the wingman relative to the «flying wing» type lead aircraft. The authors show that computational methods application for the aerodynamic characteristics determining allows supplementing the results of experimental modeling in wind tunnels. Thus, with the interval between the aircraft axes of symmetry decreasing, the lift force increment increases and reaches its maximum at Δz/l = 0.9. The increment of the moment coefficients changing changes slightly herewith. Further, while further transversal spacing decrease, the sharp changing of coefficients of aerodynamic forces and moments starts due to approaching the lead aircraft vortex wake. While the trailing aircraft movement in the vortex wake (which symmetry axis coincides with the spatial position of the vortex core Δz/l = 0.5) the moment coefficients and drag force are maximum, and the lifting force increment is negative.

Keywords:

team flight, flight in trailing vortex, flight in close formation, computational aerodynamics, aerodynamic interference of the unmanned aerial vehicles

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