Course: Advanced Aerodynamics
The aircraft manufacturing industry has been thriving throughout the years despite political, economic, and engineering challenges. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are the newest type of aircraft being designed. Teal Group Corporation predicts that the global production of civil drones will triple within the next decade (Teal Group Corporation, 2019). The forecast for global military production of UAV is close to 99 billion within the next 10 years (Teal Group Corporation, 2019). With such a high number of UAV expected to enter the global airspace, the design of stable, reliable, and safe systems is critical. Why are stability, control, and good handling qualities critical to the design of UAV?
An unmanned aerial system refers to a pilotless aircraft, a flying machine without an onboard human pilot or passengers (Valavanis & Vachtsevanos, 2015). UAVs are often affected by vibrations and random displacements due to external forces and internal system malfunctions. For example, the stability of recreational and commercial drones is often affected by the wind. This external force causes a sudden increase in acceleration and velocity that abruptly displaces the UAV. This effect can rapidly occur in multiple direction or axis and it leads to disorientation, vibrations, and loss of control. It is therefore important to design stability and control systems that can compensate for such effects and keep the UAV in a steady state. Not only can structural vibrations lead to a disintegration of internal UAV sub-systems or the UAV itself, but also can a loss of control and a crash lead to collisions, public incidents, and major safety concerns. The objective of this example is to provide a simple and practical explanation for the importance of the design of safe and stable UAV. Larger and Military UAVs are often equipped with more complex systems.
The mission capabilities and weapons systems of military UAVs renders even more critical the design of their stability and control systems. Methods used for the design of large Military UAVs' flight control systems include linear flight control techniques, non-linear flight control techniques and adaptive control techniques (Valavanis & Vachtsevanos, 2015). But the basic flight path disruption concept is as explained for small recreational and commercial UAV. The techniques mentioned above are essentially used for the design of predictive sensors, predictive and correction control systems. For example, large military UAVs are often equipped with advanced trajectory correction maneuver systems that are triggered by position, speed, temperature, pressure, obstacle proximity data measured by sensors installed on the vehicles. These sensors often consist of advanced emitter and receiver systems. The main objective is to prevent a loss of control or system malfunction that may be the cause of collisions, crashes, and major casualties. As an example, the sudden displacement of a weapon-system equipped military UAV may cause a structural vibration that leads to a failure in its weapon control functions and ignite a launch. In another example, a loss of control of a large UAV may lead to a collision with other aircraft or a crash in inhabited areas. Thus, the design of reliable and efficient UAVs' stability and control systems is vital.
References
Teal Group Corporation. (2019, June 16). Teal Group Predicts Worldwide Civil Drone Production will almost triple over the next decade. [Press Release]. Retrieved from
Teal Group Corporation. (2019, November 11). Teal Group Predicts Worldwide Military UAV
Production of almost $99 Billion Over the Next Decade [Press Release]. Retrieved from
Valavanis K.P., Vachtsevanos G.J. (2015). Handbook of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Dordrecht,
Netherlands: Springer Publishing Company.
Comments