Title of Paper:

Constrained Volume Packing of Deployable Wings for

Unmanned Aircraft
Authors:
Institute:
Turner John Harris under Dr. Suzanne University of Kentucky
Smith
Source:
Year
Ph.D. Thesis
2011
Purpose of Paper:
The objective is to compare different wing packing strategies
inflatable, hybrid and rigid wings to achieve optimum
packing. The thesis defines certain packing parameters for
classification and comparison of different packing schemes.
Additionally, it also studies effect of long-term wing
packaging.
Review:
The paper explores two approaches of quantifying packing
efficiency. One approach is to define the envelope and
maximize the deployed wing length. The other approach is to
decide the desired extra packed wing area and fit it into a
minimum volume.
A quantity called packed percentage (PP) is defined as packed
volume/deployed volume x 100.
It is found that inflatable wings give 0.7% PP, hybrid give 7 to
59% depending on the mechanism and hinged rigid wings
give upto 663%.
Telescopic wing designs could give a PP of 21 to 25%.
For inflatable wings, several packing strategies were used
rolling, single folds, Z-folds. The Z-folds were found most
compact. Vacuum packing was found more efficient.
Another way of measuring packing efficiency is packed wing
length.
Other factors affecting the PP were: mounting arrangement,
turn radius, number of folds.
A MATLAB simulation is carried out to check the packed length
in a given constrained volume by random packing methods.
Efficiency of the packing is measured in terms of minimum
potential energy. A genetic algorithm is used to maximise the

packed length.
A long term packing study was carried out by laboratory aging
of the packed wing over 538 days and unpackability, strength
and temperature performance were evaluated.
Scope for Future Work:
Direct use of the code to determine the packing volumes for
inflatable wings