Multidisciplinary Conceptual Design Methodology Integrating Advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation for Optimal and Innovative Vertical Take-Off and Landing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Designs

Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) and VTOL fixed-wing UAVs can have a significantly positive societal impact with applications such as urban air taxi, flying ambulance, search and rescue, delivery to remote places (e.g., Canadian north) and medical equipment transport. These applications are challenging in many aspects. One of the biggest challenges is to achieve high energy efficiency for competitive performance or even feasibility. Weight and aerodynamics are the primary drivers of energy efficiency. Therefore, the emergence of VTOL and VTOL fixed-wing UAVs for demanding applications will depend on the designers’ ability to optimize designs for weight and aerodynamics. The proposed research aims to develop a novel conceptual design methodology integrating advanced aerodynamics in a multidisciplinary framework for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The novelty will be to achieve a step-change in the level of accuracy within the multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) procedure. The selected approach is based on two theoretical kernels: MDO and advanced aerodynamics.

Faculty Supervisor:

Jonathan Liscouet

Student:

Partner:

Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Education

University:

Concordia University

Program: