Wing Design and Adaptive Optimization of a Compound Drone

Abstract

With the growing demand for unmanned transportation, the rise of compound drones is imperative. Aerodynamic optimization design plays a significant role in the development cycle of compound drones. Researches were performed on key parameter adaptive screening and design space adaptive updating of surrogate-based aerodynamic optimization techniques. A parametric/spatial adaptive aerodynamic optimization platform was established, which can improve the optimization efficiency and search capability effectively in the process of aerodynamic optimization. A preliminary design scheme of wing for a compound drone was presented, and adaptive aerodynamic optimization was carried out. The lift-to-drag ratios of the optimized wing root and tip airfoils and the resulting optimized wing were all increased by over 5%, with design lift coefficients equaling to 1.0, and the corresponding angles of attack were also reduced by more than 2°. The stall characteristics and the roll control ability of the wing were improved simultaneously.

Keywords

• compound drones
• wing design
• adaptive optimization
• parameter screening
• space updating