Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Holger Babinsky*
Visiting Summer Professor to the University of Florida, Shalimar, FL, USA
Lou Cattafesta
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
Gregg Abate
Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate, Eglin AFB, FL, USA
I. Introduction
T HE University of Florida Research and Engineering Education Facility (UF/REEF)1 has had a long history of
collaboration with the US Air Force Research Laboratory Munition Directorate (AFRL/MN)2. Recent interest
in micro aerial vehicles has led UF/REEF to focus its research efforts in this area. Micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) are
characterized by small vehicle size (O 10 cm), low flight speed (O 10 m/s), and low Reynolds number (O 10,000-
100,000). Figure 1 depicts where MAVs lay on the mass versus Reynolds number plot for flight vehicles and Figure
2 depicts some examples of MAVs. The desire to develop MAVs is fueled by the need for increased situational
awareness (especially in urban environments), remote sensing capability, over the hill reconnaissance, precision
payload delivery, and aid in rescue missions. MAVs can be considered a sub-class of uninhabited air vehicles
(UAVs). UAVs have been developed in recent years by leveraging traditional aerospace science technologies.
However, the engineering maturity required for MAV development has not kept pace. For instance, due to the
extremely small size of MAVs, the flowfield is dominated by separated flow regimes on the order of the vehicle
size. Also, the small size of MAVs gives rise to reduced inertias which make a MAV more susceptible to wind
gusts.
*
Reader in Aerodynamics, Cambridge University, UK, Senior Member AIAA
Associate Professor, University of Florida, Associate Fellow AIAA
Senior Aerospace Engineer, AFRL/MN, Associate Fellow AIAA
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This material is declared a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States.
MMVs
MAVs
Mass (kg)
Vl
Reynolds number =
Figure 1. Mass versus Reynolds number for MAVs3 Figure 2. Examples of MAVs
II. Requirements
A. AFRL
In recent years, interest and development of micro aerial vehicles has been greatly increased. MAVs provide the
warfighter with increased situational awareness, an over the hill reconnaissance ability, and remote sensing
capabilities to name a few. Two aspects of MAV developments that are of particular interest to the Munitions
Directorate are that of aerodynamic agility and robust controllability. Aerodynamic agility provides a MAV the
ability to maneuver in close quarters. Robust controllability allows a MAV to be controlled in a variety of methods
and circumstances. Simply put, AFRL is interested in autonomous aerodynamic control of MAVs. This requires
the ability to properly characterize the aerodynamics of such MAVs and also the ability to incorporate autonomous
control strategies in a controlled environment. These two requirements have led to the desire to develop a special
characterization facility. This paper describes the design considerations for such a facility.
Specific requirements from AFRLs perspective include:
B. UF
The University of Florida Research & Engineering Education Facility (UF/REEF) has a long history of
partnering with the Munitions Directorate. Similarly, the University of Florida Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering (MAE) Department in Gainesville, Florida, have been developing MAVs for over 5 years4,5,6.
Consequently, the University of Florida is endeavoring to establish a research center located at the UF/REEF that
will allow for cutting edge research with MAV applications. Specific requirements from the University of Florida
perspective include:
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III. Aerodynamic Characterization Facility
In this section the requirements for the proposed facility are summarized and their impact on its design is
discussed. In view of these factors two alternatives solutions are presented and compared. At the end of this section
specific recommendations for the selection of a design will be made.
A. Aims of facility
The proposed facility is expected to provide a capability for the characterization of the aerodynamic performance
of potential future MAVs. This includes the ability to gather the data necessary to devise control strategies as well as
the potential to investigate aerodynamic problem areas or specific failings. Since it is likely that future MAVs will
incorporate unusual control strategies, the facility must enable researchers to critically assess such novel methods.
Furthermore, the aerodynamic issues should not be seen (and tested) in isolation, but rather the facility should be
able to also provide information on structural responses (such as aero-elasticity) as well as integration issues (e.g.,
thrust integration or sensor integration). Therefore the mission for the proposed facility ranges from fairly basic
investigations of individual technical issues encountered by MAVs (for example an evaluation of wing shapes or
control effectiveness) all the way to testing a fully integrated vehicle in a flight configuration for performance
evaluation throughout the mission envelope.
The latter requirement for hover and perch capability is comparable to V/STOL capabilities in aircraft and as
such poses significant challenges. In particular, the vehicle must be controllable at very low flight speeds and must
have the ability to generate sufficient thrust for hover and VTOL. The latter implies an ability for thrust vectoring.
For these reasons it is expected that some of the most challenging research will be concerned with the transition
from forward flight to hover as well as take-off / landing and the design of the facility must be suited to such
research.
A fundamental constraint on the design of the facility is the available space which is confined to a rectangular
box with the dimensions 483014 (length, width, height). Furthermore, access is limited by the size of the doors
to the lab and the external doors to the building. These measure approximately 6 6.5.
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Table 1. Flight speeds as a function of Reynolds number based upon 4 chord
It is expected that crucial mission elements will be at flight speeds well below cruise. Therefore, much of the
expected operating range lies between Reynolds numbers of 1,000 100,000. Such Reynolds numbers are even
below those traditionally classified as low in aeronautical research (100,000 500,000). This has two important
consequences:
Previous research (e.g., low-Re airfoil research) is not directly applicable to novel MAVs and
unexpected problems and challenges can be guaranteed.
The facility must be flexible enough to handle such unexpected challenges when they arise.
At the high end of this Re range, it is known from research on wing aerodynamics that transition problems are
commonplace. On the other hand, even at very low Reynolds numbers of the order of 1,000, research by others on
insect flight7 has demonstrated that turbulent flow can become an important factor. Consequently it can be predicted
with confidence that the issue of flow transition from laminar to turbulent will feature in virtually every case
investigated in the facility. Only extremely low Reynolds numbers (<1000) can be assumed to be immune from
transition-related problems.
As an illustration of the potential problems arising from low Reynolds numbers, Figure 3 shows lift and drag
coefficients on a NACA66018 airfoil at three different Reynolds numbers (from Mueller & Batill, 1982). It can be
seen that the data obtained at a Reynolds number of 130,000 already suffers from flow separations as expected for a
low Reynolds number airfoil. However, as the Reynolds number is reduced even further, to 40,000, the differences
in lift and lift-curve-slope are even more drastic. Similar behavior of a future MAV wing would have a severe
impact on the flight performance, and it is therefore essential that the proposed facility is capable of identifying or
replicating such events.
The main difficulty with investigating such effects is that the air flow inside wind tunnels is not the same as that
experienced by a vehicle in free-flight. Even in gusty wind conditions, the flow experienced by a craft in flight
contains virtually no small-scale disturbances (wind-gusts or atmospheric turbulence have length scales of the orders
of meters or more). Wind tunnel flow on the other hand contains small fluctuations in velocity and flow direction
which are of sub-mm scale. Such disturbances are well known to affect the boundary layers on an object and cause
premature flow transition. A noisy wind tunnel flow can therefore mask any transition-related low Reynolds
number problems and this could lead to considerable discrepancies between the aerodynamic behavior observed in a
facility and that experienced in a flight test. The only solution to this problem is to strive to reduce fluctuations in a
wind tunnel to a minimum. That is, to design for low-turbulence flow.
In order to simulate the type of disturbances encountered during flight in a gusty environment, large-scale
disturbances need to be introduced to the flow, and this is an entirely different issue from the small scale
disturbances naturally present in artificially generated flows.
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Figure 3. Lift coefficient versus angle of attack for a NACA66018 airfoil at low Reynolds numbers8
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complete absence of wind tunnel disturbances (turbulence), which cannot be achieved. In practice a compromise
should be sought were the disturbance level of the flow in the facility is low enough so that flow transition occurs in
almost the same fashion as it would in free flight. Particularly at low flow speeds this is a difficult requirement (even
for specialist wind tunnels) but it is thought that a typical turbulence level of 0.1% is achievable at the higher flow
speeds. This may be sufficient for the tests expected in the facility and is therefore recommended as a target value.
In addition, the facility should conform to good standards of flow uniformity across the working section. (However,
requirements are no more stringent than for any other research wind tunnel.) Typically one should aim for variations
of flow velocities (in magnitude and direction) within a few percent of the mean throughout the core region (approx
80% of the flow).
5. Geometry:
As discussed below, much of the instrumentation expected in the facility is based on optical observation.
Furthermore, a very great variety of tests are expected to be conducted, and a multitude of mounts, stings and rigs
are likely to be employed. For this reason it is important that the facility does not impose too many constraints on
access to the flow, either physical or optical. Therefore, an open-jet layout is highly desirable as it allows the
greatest flexibility for future research.
6. Settling chamber:
From the requirements on flow quality a typical choice of settling chamber diameter would be three times the
working section dimension giving a contraction ratio of the order of 9:1. Apart from the constraints imposed by flow
quality, the settling chamber is also very likely to be the location where flow-seeding will be introduced (for flow
visualization and optical measurements) and where any device that may generate deliberate and controlled flow
disturbances may be installed. For this reason it would be advantageous to have a settling chamber that is somewhat
longer than normally considered necessary.
7. Summary:
The key requirements for the facility can be summarized as follows:
Working section diameter 3.5-4 circular or square
Open jet working section
Speed range 0 20 (or 25) m/s
Excellent controllability at low speeds
Flow turbulence 0.1% (at 10-20 m/s) or better
Flow uniformity and swirl better than 1% in core flow
E. Proposed solutions
After consideration of the issues discussed so far and as a result of consultations with staff at UF and AFRL, two
likely solutions have been identified. None of the designs proposed here is of the closed-loop layout because of the
available laboratory space. It is conceivable that a closed-loop design may emerge as a potentially favorable solution
because of factors not considered here, but in that case it is likely that structural modifications are necessary.
1. Concept A: High quality blower tunnel
This design, as shown in Figure 4, features a fan located upstream of the working section followed by a large
settling chamber. The relatively low operational flow speed requirement of the facility is thought to make an
unusually large fan diameter a realistic proposition. The main advantages of an upstream fan location are that any
debris originating from the working section would not be able to hit and damage the fan and that the working section
pressure is atmospheric (no requirement for an additional enclosure). The absence of any significant diffuser
upstream of the working section and the straight lay-out are likely to be beneficial for flow quality. However, the
main disadvantage of this design is the difficulty of achieving high-quality flow downstream of a fan, and this is
likely to require turning vanes (possibly both, pre- and post-fan) and significant flow straightening and screening
devices in the settling chamber. A further difficulty of this design is that it is somewhat unusual (large fans are
generally avoided because of the high loads encountered) and would therefore need very careful custom design.
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Figure 4. High quality blower type MAV wind tunnel concept
3. Other Concepts
A number of suggestion have been put forward which generally consisted of much more basic arrangements to
generate the required flow velocities. A common feature of all these designs is that they are generally of much lower
complexity and cost, to the detriment of flow quality and working section access. However, in view of the expected
significance of low Re effects it has been decided to not consider such solutions.
F. Instrumentation Requirements
It is intended that the ACF will be equipped with a full range of instrumentation, similar to that normally
available at wind tunnel sites. Here, there is likely to be particular emphasis on sting balances and actuating model
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mounts, enabling both static and dynamic tests. In addition to traditional equipment a number of items are thought
to be of particular interest due to the nature of the research in the facility. In particular it is expected that much of the
research in the facility will involve highly 3-dimensional and unsteady flows and that it is impractical to fully
instrument wind tunnel models with flow sensors (many of the models are likely to be real MAV prototypes) and
therefore the emphasis is on optical flow diagnostics external to the wind tunnel model. Two systems are
particularly suited to the facility and these are briefly discussed below:
A stereoscopic high-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) system9 with a typical resolution of at least
1000x1000 pixels, capable of resolving 1000 measurements/s is highly recommended. This can provide vital
information on unsteady aerodynamic effects as occurring during the deployment of control surfaces or under
maneuver conditions. Even in steady flight it is thought that the flow regime and flexible nature of MAVs makes
unsteady flow likely and this must be fully characterized in the facility.
A visual image correlation (VIC) system10 will allow for the detailed resolution of flexible body deformations is
needed to quantify the degree of flexibility that MAVs undergo11,12. The VIC system uses stereo cameras to observe
a flexible surface and the reconstructive software will give precise surface deformations. It is hoped that both the
VIC and PIV system can be used in concert to provide detailed data on aero-structural interactions.
A. Force coefficients
The most likely use of the facility in its early days is the determination of force and moment coefficients and
their static and dynamic derivatives for the purposes of designing control strategies. This type of test typically
involves the positioning of a wind tunnel model at set angles of attack, roll and sideslip and measuring the force and
moment coefficients for a variety of flow speeds. A matrix of many such measurements (varying the angles) needs
to be covered and for this reason it is necessary to have an automatic model mount that can perform movements
according to a pre-programmed schedule. Dynamic tests involve sweeping motions through some of the same
parameters. Measurements are taken through internal six-component balances which need to be of sufficient
accuracy and stiffness.
Such test are commonplace in aerospace, although the application to very small MAVs at low air speeds is likely
to introduce some new challenges in terms of low noise measurements of small forces and moments.
C. Stability experiments
Once dynamic force coefficients are known, control surfaces have been designed and control methodologies
have been developed, the characterization facility opens up the opportunity for testing vehicle stability along one or
several axes by performing dynamic stability tests. This requires the use of model mounts with one or more degrees
of freedom.
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the facility while the on-board camera is actually placed in the visualization lab where an artificial environment is
presented in real-time. Such a test, while still some time in the future, would give the lab a unique position in MAV
research, and could be offered to third parties as a test bed.
E. Free flight
Apart from the simulated free-flight described above, it is also thought that future research would involve real
free-flight within the facility. This could be either tethered or un-tethered. While the size of the working section
prevents significant maneuvers from being executed, there are still a number of useful tests that could be conducted,
such as
Speed up / down
Transition from hover to forward flight and vice versa
Evaluation of the accuracy of positioning systems (micro-maneuvers)
Aerodynamic evaluation without sting interference
Endurance tests in a variety of flow regimes
G. Summary
The tests outlined above are only a small selection of possible scenarios. The intention here was not to cover all
aspects of future research (or even direct it) but rather to highlight the versatility of the proposed facility and act as
inspiration to others. It is likely (and expected) that the future will offer many more as yet un-thought avenues for
exciting research. In the authors view a good basic design of the facility, combined with the multidisciplinary
nature of research at UF/REEF, would offer a number of firsts and give the REEF every opportunity to become a
centre of excellence for MAV aerodynamics (and MAV research in general).
V. Conclusions
This paper outlines the development of design requirements for an aerodynamic characterization facility
uniquely suited for micro aerial vehicle research. This is a collaborative effort between the University of Florida
and the Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate. The facility is developed to satisfy needs of both
collaborators. It was shown that the specific micro aerial vehicles of interest will operate in a Reynolds number
regime where transition is likely to occur. Therefore, any facility developed to characterize the aerodynamics of
such vehicles must be aerodynamically as quiet as possible. Special care must be taken to insure as little turbulence
is present in the facility. Key parameters for the facility were developed based upon available research space and
requirements were defined that will allow for a detailed design to proceed. Two facility concepts were presented in
this paper; one being a high quality blower type facility and the other a high quality suction tunnel. Instrumentation
requirements were also defined and presented that will allow versatility of research for both aerodynamicists and
controls researchers. Additionally, planned research activities were outlined to provide a feel for the capabilities of
the facility.
References
1
http://www.reef.ufl.edu
2
http://www.mn.afrl.af.mil/
3
Mueller, T.J., Fixed and Flapping Wing Aerodynamics for Micro Air Vehicle Applications, Progress in
Astronautics and Aeronautics, vol. 195, AIAA, Reston, 2001.
4
Ifju, P., Jenkins, D., Ettinger, S., Lian, Y., Shyy, W., and Waszak, R.M., Flexible-Wing-Based Micro Air
Vehicles, AIAA Paper 2002-0705, Jan. 2002.
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5
Albertani, R., Hubner, J. P., Ifju, P.G., Lind, R., and Jackowski, J., Experimental Aerodynamics of Micro Air
Vehicles, SAE World Aviation Congress and Exhibition, Paper 04AER-8, 7 pages, Nov 2004.
6
Ifju, P. G., Ettinger, S., Jenkins, D. A., Martinez, L., Composite Materials for Micro Air Vehicles, Proceeding
for the SAMPE Annual Conference, Long Beach CA, May 6-10, 2001.
7
Nolan, G.R., 2004. "Aerodynamics of Vortex Lift in Insect Flight," PhD Thesis, University of Cambridge,
Cambridge, UK.
8
Mueller, T.J. & Bathill, S.M., (1982), Experimental Studies of Separation on a Two-Dimensional Airfoil at Low
Reynolds Numbers, AIAA J., Vol.20, No.4, pp.457-463, 1982.
9
Time Resolved Particle Image Velocimetry (TR-PIV) by Dantec Dynamics FlowManager Analysis and
FlowManager 3D PIV Stereoscopic software by Dantec Dynamics (www.dantecdynamics.com)
10
Dynamic Vic-3D Digital Image Correlation System by Correlated Solutions Inc. with two Phantom high speed
monochrome cameras (www.correlatedsolutions,com)
11
Albertani, R., Stanford, B., Hubner, J. P., and Ifju, P., Characterization of Flexible Wing MAV s: Aeroelastic
and Propulsion Effects on Flying Qualities, Presented at the AIAA Atmospheric Flight Mechanics Conference, San
Francisco, CA, 2005.
12
Albertani, R., Stanford, B., Hubner, J. P., and Ifju, P., Wind Tunnel Characterization Applied to Powered Micro
Aerial Vehicles with LAR Fixed Flexible Wings, 21st Bristol International UAV Systems Conference, Bristol, UK,
April 3-5, 2006.
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