Flight Testing of Dynamic Soaring Part-1 : Leeward Inclined Circle Trajectory

Bronz, Murat; Gavrilovic, Nikola; Drouin, Antoine; Hattenberger, Gautier; Moschetta, Jean‐Marc

doi:10.2514/6.2021-1527

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 21 publications

(16 reference statements)

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“…Considerable recent published work has considered the alleviation of gust loads on aircraft [72][73][74][75][76] and in some cases even harvesting it [77][78][79]. Severe gusts around buildings can pose a major challenge for flight of different vehicular scales and configurations.…”

Section: Airframe Design and Certification Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gusts Encountered by Flying Vehicles in Proximity to Buildings

Abdel‐Rohman

Marino

Watkins

et al. 2022

Drones

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There is a growing desire to operate Uncrewed Air Vehicles (UAVs) in urban environments for parcel delivery, and passenger-carrying air taxis for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM). The turbulent flows and gusts around buildings and other urban infrastructure can affect the steadiness and stability of such air vehicles by generating a highly transient relative flow field. Our aim is to review existing gust models, then consider gust encounters in the vicinity of buildings as experienced by flight trajectories over the roof of a nominally cuboid building in a suburban atmospheric boundary layer. Simplified models of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft are used to illustrate the changes in lift and thrust experienced by flight around the building. The analysis showed that fixed-wing aircraft experienced a substantial increase in angle of attack over a relatively short period of time (<1 s) as they fly through the shear layer at a representative forward velocity, which can be well above typical stall angles. Due to the slow flight speeds required for landing and take-off, significant control authority of rotor systems is required to ensure safe operation due to the high disturbance effects caused by localized gusts from buildings and protruding structures. Currently there appears to be negligible certification or regulation for AAM systems to ensure safe operations when traversing building flow fields under windy conditions and it is hoped that the insights provided in this paper will assist with future certification and regulation.

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Section: Airframe Design and Certification Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gusts Encountered by Flying Vehicles in Proximity to Buildings

Abdel‐Rohman

Marino

Watkins

et al. 2022

Drones

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“…Gradient soaring may involve either closed or open-circuit flight trajectories [ 15 , 138 , 156 , 157 ], but both require relatively large spaces to manoeuvre. Closed-circuit flights have been achieved using radio-controlled recreational models [ 158 ] and more recently by autonomous vehicles [ 159 ]. These exploit the shear layer formed over a spine-backed ridge where the flow up the windward side of the hill meets the rotor flowing up the leeward side of the hill ( figure 4 c ).…”

Section: State Of the Art In Autonomous Atmospherically Aware Soaringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunistic soaring by birds suggests new opportunities for atmospheric energy harvesting by flying robots

Abdel‐Rohman

Taylor

Watkins

et al. 2022

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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The use of flying robots (drones) is increasing rapidly, but their utility is limited by high power demand, low specific energy storage and poor gust tolerance. By contrast, birds demonstrate long endurance, harvesting atmospheric energy in environments ranging from cluttered cityscapes to open landscapes, coasts and oceans. Here, we identify new opportunities for flying robots, drawing upon the soaring flight of birds. We evaluate mechanical energy transfer in soaring from first principles and review soaring strategies encompassing the use of updrafts (thermal or orographic) and wind gradients (spatial or temporal). We examine the extent to which state-of-the-art flying robots currently use each strategy and identify several untapped opportunities including slope soaring over built environments, thermal soaring over oceans and opportunistic gust soaring. In principle, the energetic benefits of soaring are accessible to flying robots of all kinds, given atmospherically aware sensor systems, guidance strategies and gust tolerance. Hence, while there is clear scope for specialist robots that soar like albatrosses, or which use persistent thermals like vultures, the greatest untapped potential may lie in non-specialist vehicles that make flexible use of atmospheric energy through path planning and flight control, as demonstrated by generalist flyers such as gulls, kites and crows.

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Flight Testing of Dynamic Soaring Part-1 : Leeward Inclined Circle Trajectory

Cited by 2 publications

References 21 publications

Gusts Encountered by Flying Vehicles in Proximity to Buildings

Gusts Encountered by Flying Vehicles in Proximity to Buildings

Opportunistic soaring by birds suggests new opportunities for atmospheric energy harvesting by flying robots

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