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Preliminary sizing correlations for UAVs’ propulsion system

Abstract:

In spite of the increasing demand of UAVs for a wide range of civil and military applications, there is a scarce number of tools and methodologies for their initial sizing and preliminary design. Nowadays, classical theories and sizing tools, mainly focused on transport aircraft, have been extrapolated to the UAV design procedure. However, these tools do not always align well to the design of UAVs because they do not consider the performance requirements, operating conditions and geometric features of UAVs. In this context, this work presents a series of correlations for preliminary sizing of propulsion systems for different UAV architectures. For this, a structured database with technical data from off-the-shelf components has been developed, the data collected have been categorized systematically to enable a statistical data analysis. This study focuses on electric-based systems addressing a series of propulsive and power technologies ranging from electric ducted fans to Li-Po batteries. The present correlations will enable to determine, at preliminary design stage, the main features of a propulsion system such as: weight, basic geometry, energy consumption, among others depending on the propulsion system type. A remarkable feature of these correlations is their simple/fast implementation and coupling with other UAV design tools. The applicability of the present correlations suits multiple UAV categories including micro, small, and MALE UAVs. The main contribution of this work is to set a series of correlations for the preliminary sizing of electric propulsion systems, specifically derived for UAVs.