Introduction To The Design Of Fixed Wing Micro Air Vehicles

This intriguing book breaks new ground on an emerging subject that has attracted considerable attention: the use of unmanned micro air vehicles (MAVs) to conduct special, limited duration missions. Significant advances in the miniaturization of electronics make it now possible to use vehicles of this type in a detection or surveillance role to carry visual, acoustic, chemical, or biological sensors. Interestingly, many of the advances in MAV technology can be traced directly to annual student competitions, begun in the late 1990s, that use relatively low cost model airplane equipment. The wide variety of configurations entered in these contests and their ongoing success has led to a serious interest in testing the performance of these vehicles for adaptation to practical applications. MAVs present aerodynamic issues unique to their size and the speeds at which they operate. Of particular concern is the aerodynamic efficiency of various fixed wing concepts. Very little information on the performance of low aspect ratio wing planforms existed for this flight regime until MAVs became of interest and the proliferation of fixed wing designs has since expanded. This book presents a brief history of unmanned air vehicles and offers elements of aerodynamics for low aspect ratio wings. Propulsion and the basic concepts for fixed wing MAV design are presented, as is a method for autopilot integration. Three different wing configurations are presented in a series of step-by-step case studies. The goal of the book is to assist both working professionals and students to design, build, and fly MAVs, and do so in a way that will advance the state of the art and lead to the development of even smalleraircraft.

Over 3,800 total pages ... Just a sample of the studies / publications included: Drone Swarms Terrorist and Insurgent Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Use, Potentials, and Military Implications Countering A2/AD with Swarming Stunning Swarms: An Airpower Alternative to Collateral Damage Ideal Directed-Energy System To Defeat Small Unmanned Aircraft System Swarms Break the Kill Chain, not the Budget: How to Avoid U.S. Strategic Retrenchment Gyges Effect: An Ethical Critique of Lethal Remotely Piloted Aircraft Human Robotic Swarm Interaction Using an Artificial Physics Approach Swarming UAS II Swarming Unmanned Aircraft Systems Communication Free Robot Swarming UAV Swarm Attack: Protection System Alternatives for Destroyers Confidential and Authenticated Communications in a Large Fixed-Wing UAV Swarm UAV Swarm Behavior Modeling for Early Exposure of Failure Modes Optimized Landing of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Swarms Mini, Micro, and Swarming Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Baseline Study UAV Swarm Operational Risk Assessment System SmartSwarms: Distributed UAVs that Think Command and Control Autonomous UxV's UAV Swarm Tactics: An Agent-Based Simulation and Markov Process Analysis A Novel Communications Protocol Using Geographic Routing for Swarming UAVs Performing a Search Mission Accelerating the Kill Chain via Future Unmanned Aircraft Evolution of Control Programs for a Swarm of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles AFIT UAV Swarm Mission Planning and Simulation System A Genetic Algorithm for UAV Routing Integrated with a Parallel Swarm Simulation Applying Cooperative Localization to Swarm UAVS Using an Extended Kalman Filter A Secure Group Communication Architecture for a Swarm of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Braving the Swarm: Lowering Anticipated Group Bias in Integrated Fire/Police Units Facing Paramilitary Terrorism Distributed Beamforming in a Swarm UAV Network Integrating UAS Flocking Operations with Formation Drag Reduction Tracking with a Cooperatively Controlled Swarm of GMTI Equipped UAVS Using Agent-Based Modeling to Evaluate UAS Behaviors in a Target-Rich Environment Experimental Analysis of Integration of Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Naval Special Warfare Operations Forces Target Acquisition Involving Multiple Unmanned Air Vehicles: Interfaces for Small Unmanned Air Systems (ISUS) Program Tools for the Conceptual Design and Engineering Analysis of Micro Air Vehicles Architectural Considerations for Single Operator Management of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

UNMANNED AIRCRAF T SYSTEMS UNMANNED AIRCRAF T SYSTEMS An unmanned aircraft system (UAS), sometimes called a drone, is an aircraft without a human pilot on board ??? instead, the UAS can be controlled by an operator station on the ground or may be autonomous in operation. UAS are capable of addressing a broad range of applications in diverse, complex environments. Traditionally employed in mainly military applications, recent regulatory changes around the world are leading to an explosion of interest and wide-ranging new applications for UAS in civil airspace. Covering the design, development, operation, and mission profiles of unmanned aircraft systems, this single, comprehensive volume forms a complete, stand-alone reference on the topic. The volume integrates with the online Wiley Encyclopedia of Aerospace Engineering, providing many new and updated articles for existing subscribers to that work. The chapters cover the following items: Airframe configurations and design (launch systems, power generation, propulsion) Operations (missions, integration issues, and airspace access) Coordination (multivehicle cooperation and human oversight) With contributions from leading experts, this volume is intended to be a valuable addition, and a useful resource, for aerospace manufacturers and suppliers, governmental and industrial aerospace research establishments, airline and aviation industries, university engineering and science departments, and industry analysts, consultants, and researchers.

Noted for its highly readable style, the new edition of this bestseller provides an updated overview of aeronautical and aerospace engineering. Introduction to Flight blends history and biography with discussion of engineering concepts, and shows the development of flight through this perspective. Anderson covers new developments in flight, including unmanned aerial vehicles, uninhabited combat aerial vehicles, and applications of CFD in aircraft design. Many new and revised problems have been added in this edition. Chapter learning features help readers follow the text discussion while highlighting key engineering and industry applications.

Going beyond the traditional field of robotics to include other mobile vehicles, this reference and "recipe book" describes important theoretical concepts, techniques, and applications that can be used to build truly mobile intelligent autonomous systems (MIAS). With the infusion of neural networks, fuzzy logic, and genetic algorithm paradigms for MIAS, it blends modeling, sensors, control, estimation, optimization, signal processing, and heuristic methods in MIAS and robotics, and includes examples and applications throughout. Offering a comprehensive view of important topics, it helps readers understand the subject from a system-theoretic and practical point of view.

Small Unmanned Fixed-wing Aircraft Design is the essential guide to designing, building and testing fixed wing UAVs (or drones). It deals with aircraft from two to 150 kg in weight and is based on the first-hand experiences of the world renowned UAV team at the UK’s University of Southampton. The book covers both the practical aspects of designing, manufacturing and flight testing and outlines and the essential calculations needed to underpin successful designs. It describes the entire process of UAV design from requirements definition to configuration layout and sizing, through preliminary design and analysis using simple panel codes and spreadsheets to full CFD and FEA models and on to detailed design with parametric CAD tools. Its focus is on modest cost approaches that draw heavily on the latest digital design and manufacturing methods, including a strong emphasis on utilizing off-the-shelf components, low cost analysis, automated geometry modelling and 3D printing. It deliberately avoids a deep theoretical coverage of aerodynamics or structural mechanics; rather it provides a design team with sufficient insights and guidance to get the essentials undertaken more pragmatically. The book contains many all-colour illustrations of the dozens of aircraft built by the authors and their students over the last ten years giving much detailed information on what works best. It is predominantly aimed at under-graduate and MSc level student design and build projects, but will be of interest to anyone engaged in the practical problems of getting quite complex unmanned aircraft flying. It should also appeal to the more sophisticated aero-modeller and those engaged on research based around fixed wing UAVs.

This book reports on the state of the art in the field of aerial-aquatic locomotion, focusing on the main challenges concerning the translation of this important ability from nature to synthetic systems, and describing innovative engineering solutions that have been applied in practice by the authors at the Aerial Robotics Lab of Imperial College London. After a general introduction to aerial-aquatic locomotion in nature, and a summary of the most important engineering achievements, the book introduces readers to important physical and mathematical aspects of the multimodal locomotion problem. Besides the basic physics involved in aerial-aquatic locomotion, the role of different phenomena happening in fluids, or those due to structural mechanics effects or to power provision, are presented in depth, across a large dimension range, from millimeters to hundreds of meters. In turn, a practice-oriented discussion on the obstacles and opportunities of miniaturization, for both robots and animals is carried out. This is followed by applied engineering considerations, which describe relevant hardware considerations involved in propulsion, control, communication and fabrication. Different case studies are analyzed in detail, reporting on the latest research carried out by the authors, and covering topics such as propulsive aquatic escape, the challenging mechanics of water impact, and a hybrid sailing and flying aircraft. Offering extensive and timely information on the design, construction and operation of small-scale robots, and on multimodal locomotion, this book provides researchers, students and professionals with a comprehensive and timely reference guide to the topic of aerial-aquatic locomotion, and the relevant bioinspired approaches. It is also expected to inspire future research and foster a stronger multidisciplinary discussion in the field.