Transport Characteristics of the Electric UAV Equipped with Drop-off Batteries

Aeronautical and Space-Rocket Engineering


Аuthors

Karpikov Y. A.1*, Trokhov D. A.1**, Fevralskikh A. V.2***

1. “Tupolev” Company, Moscow, Russian Federation
2. Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University n.a. R.E. Alekseev, 24, Minin Street, Nizhny Novgorod, 603950, Russia

*e-mail: yourockkarp@mail.ru
**e-mail: datrohov@tupolev.ru
***e-mail: a.fevralskih@gmail.com

Abstract

Development of modern aviation technology requires assessment of the aircraft basic technical characteristics as early as at the preliminary design stage. One of the important tasks of an aircraft designing consists in ensuring the required transport characteristics. The electric UAVs transport characteristics upgrading is an urgent area of the aviation technology development, owing to this type of aircraft scope of application expansion. To solve this technical problem, a number of approaches is being worked over by the practice of the global aircraft industry. These include the hybrid power plants elaboration, solar energy utilization by the UAV rigging with solar panels, the UAV weight reduction by the payload gradual consuming in flight, etc. The presented article considers the possibility of the electric UAV transport characteristics improving by the UAV discrete weight reduction by dumping the battery pack elements expended in flight. The authors proposed to evaluate the increase in flight range and weight characteristics improvement of the electric UAV rigged with the dropped-off battery pack elements by the ballistic design methods. Transport characteristics comparison of the constant-weight and variable-weight UAVs was performed with account for the weights equality of a single battery of both UAVs. The well-known ballistic design technique has been updated in terms of accounting for the specifics of the electric power plant operation and the possibility of accounting for the discrete change in the UAV weight as the elements battery pack are being expended and dropped off. It was assumed herewith that at the UAV stage of take-off and climb, increased power is required and all the elements from the battery pack are turned on simultaneously. In this paper, flight programs were studied, in which cruising flight is possible by using one element from the battery pack. The article presents a system of equations of motion for electric UAV of both constant and variable weight. The UAV maximum flight range was being estimated for the vertical trajectories without lateral maneuvers. Validation of the technique was performed by modeling the flight for the maximum range of the Cutlass air target analogue and comparing the computed characteristics with the known flight characteristics of this UAV. The transport characteristics study of two classes of UAVs was conducted with the developed technique. The article presents the results of comparative computations of constant and variable weight electric UAVs. It is demonstrated that application of the principle being considered allows the flight range increasing of the small UAV of the SUAS class by more than 20%, and heavier UAVs of the STUAS class by 50%. A study has been conducted on the effect of the wing loading on the flight range and take-off weight of the electric UAVs rigged with a different numbers of the drop-off elements from the battery pack content.

Keywords:

electric unmanned aerial vehicles, variable mass aircraft, ballistic design

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