UAV Flight Testing

A special issue of Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310). This special issue belongs to the section "Aeronautics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 4277

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Aerospace Engineering, Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO 63103, USA
Interests: flight testing; aircraft parameter identification; neural networks; parallel and distributed computing

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Co-Guest Editor
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Lab, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA 91768, USA
Interests: unmanned aerial systems; robust linear and nonlinear control; robust adaptive control; intelligent control

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the expanded use of UAVs in various roles, it is becoming important to characterize their performance to ensure that the UAVs meet desired performance and safety specifications. While simulations are an important step, flight testing of these UAVs in real-world scenarios is the ultimate proving ground. This Special Issue solicits papers that cover the flight testing process, including experiment design, field procedures, safety protocols, communication, design and development and integration of onboard instrumentation, data handling procedures, and other relevant issues as seen in industry and academia.

Some other potential topics could include (but are not limited to)

  1. Fixed-wing/Multirotor UAV flight test
  2. BVLOS flights
  3. Autonomous/pilot in the loop flights
  4. Curated data sets from flight tests
  5. Flight tests for fault tolerance
  6. Flight tests of single UAV or UAV swarms
  7. Application of artificial intelligence and machine learning

Prof. Dr. Srikanth Gururajan
Prof. Dr. Subodh Bhandari
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • UAV
  • flight testing
  • unmanned aerial vehicle

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 4714 KiB  
Article
In-Flight Demonstration of Stall Improvement Using a Plasma Actuator for a Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
by Satoshi Sekimoto, Hiroki Kato, Kozo Fujii and Hiroshi Yoneda
Aerospace 2022, 9(3), 144; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace9030144 - 7 Mar 2022
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3120
Abstract
The flow control capability (especially for separation control) of a dielectric-barrier-discharge plasma actuator (DBD-PA) has been investigated extensively. However, these studies have been conducted under ideal conditions, such as wind tunnels and computational environments, and limited studies have investigated the effects of plasma [...] Read more.
The flow control capability (especially for separation control) of a dielectric-barrier-discharge plasma actuator (DBD-PA) has been investigated extensively. However, these studies have been conducted under ideal conditions, such as wind tunnels and computational environments, and limited studies have investigated the effects of plasma actuators in an actual environment. In this study, the flow control capability of a DBD-PA under natural and in-flight conditions was investigated via field flight tests using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The DBD-PA driving system was constructed with a small high-voltage power supply on a 2-m-span UAV. With the support of an autonomous flight system, the pitch angle gradually increased as the airspeed decreased, and the stall occurred from the cruise state. This flight procedure was conducted with the DBD-PA on or off, and 246 pairs of flights were operated. The results revealed that a flight state with a higher pitch angle and lower airspeed occurred when DBD-PA was switched on. In addition, the moment of stall was quantitatively determined from the flight log, and it was confirmed that the maximum pitch angle when DBD-PA was switched on tended to be larger than that when DBD-PA was switched off. These results indicate that flow control with a DBD-PA on a 2-m-span UAV was effective in natural and in-flight situations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue UAV Flight Testing)
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