An Open-Source Aerodynamic Shape Optimization Application for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Propeller

Abstract

The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) become more popular and functional for today’s needs in comparison to the conventional aircrafts for military, agriculture, private purposes. Generally, these vehicles are using propeller based propulsion systems. Thus, aerodynamic shape optimization is a vital process to improve their performance. Accordingly, in the present study, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based open-source shape optimization framework (combined use of CFD solver, Optimization solver, Free-Form Deformation (FFD) tool and Mesh Generator utility) is designed to optimize the shape of a generic UAV propeller. As a result, the open-source shape optimization framework here woks quite efficiently and the Figure of Merit (FM) of the propeller has been improved around 50 %.

Keywords

• open-source, aerodynamic shape optimization, unmanned aerial vehicle, propeller, genetic algorithm, gradient-based optimization