A CFD-based procedure for airspace integration of small unmanned aircraft within congested areas

Future integration of small unmanned aircraft within an urban airspace requires an a posteriori understanding of the building-induced aerodynamics which could negatively impact on vehicle performance. Moving away from generalised building formations, we model the centre of the city of Glasgow using...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of micro air vehicles 2017-12, Vol.9 (4), p.235-252
Main Authors: Murray, Craig WA, Anderson, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerodynamics
Aircraft
Airspace
Altitude
Computational fluid dynamics
Energy distribution
Flow characteristics
Impact strength
Kinetic energy
Spatial distribution
Stellar winds
Turbulence
Unmanned aerial vehicles
Unmanned aircraft
Wind speed
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Future integration of small unmanned aircraft within an urban airspace requires an a posteriori understanding of the building-induced aerodynamics which could negatively impact on vehicle performance. Moving away from generalised building formations, we model the centre of the city of Glasgow using Star-CCM+, a commercial CFD package. After establishing a critical turbulent kinetic energy for our vehicle, we analyse the CFD results to determine how best to operate a small unmanned aircraft within this environment. As discovered in a previous study, the spatial distribution of turbulence increases with altitude. It was recommended then that UAVs operate at the minimal allowable altitude within a congested area. As the flow characteristics in an environment are similar, regardless of inlet velocity, we can determine areas within a city which will have consistently low or high values of turbulent kinetic energy. As the distribution of turbulence is dependent on prevailing wind directions, some directions are more favourable than others, even if the wind speed is unchanging. Moving forward we should aim to gather more information about integrated aircraft and how they respond to turbulence in a congested area.
ISSN:1756-8293
1756-8307
DOI:10.1177/1756829316669957