Engineering Commons^™

A Comparison Of The Strengths And Weaknesses Of Small-Format Aerial Photography Platforms, Jeremy W. Aber, Tyler A. Babb, Douglas E. Campbell, Kevin M. Corns

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The demand for small-format aerial photography continues to grow in large part due to the rapid adoption of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Prior to the explosion of UAV use, this kind of photography was collected using older technologies such as tethered kites and blimps. Due to the increased demand for aerial imagery, this article looks at four platforms commonly used to collect small-format aerial imagery: multi-rotor UAVs, fixed-wing UAVs, kites, and blimps. Practical use considerations are explored, including characteristics of flight and operation, atmospheric and site factors, imaging sensors and costs, and regulatory limitations.

Each of the four categories of …

Book Review: Fundamentals Of International Aviation, Alan Bender

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Not applicable.

Experimental Investigation Of A New Spiral Wingtip, Naseeb Ahmed Siddiqui, Mohammed Aldheeb, Waqar Asrar, Erwin Sulaeman

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Experiments on the relative merits and demerits of slotted wingtips mimicking a bird’s primary feathers have been performed. The real emargination length of feather tips, their flexibility and curved shapes during cruise are considered in the present study. The experiments were performed at a Reynolds number of 3.7 x 10⁵ on a symmetric flat plate half wing of aspect ratio 3. Lift, drag and pitching moments were measured using a six component aerodynamic balance. Four different shapes inspired by bird primary feathers have been analysed. The rigid curved tip performed the best increasing the L/D ratio by 20%. This …

The Challenges Of Processing Kite Aerial Photography Imagery With Modern Photogrammetry Techniques, Jeremy W. Aber, Tyler A. Babb

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Kite Aerial Photography (KAP) is a traditional method of collecting small-format aerial photography used for work in a variety of fields. This research explored techniques for processing KAP imagery with a focus on some of the challenges specific to photo processing. The performance of multiple automated image compositing programs was compared using a common set of 29 images. Those packages that were based on a photogrammetry approach outperformed the non-photogrammetric software, and generated similar levels of quality to one another. While all three photogrammetric packages produced satisfactory output, each had unique challenges.

A Novel Approach For Missing Combat Support Aircraft Search Acceleration Using Vtol Uas, Mohammed Ba Zuhair, Wisam Yousef, Issam Samara, Vladislav Varsegov

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

In this paper, an approach to accelerate search operations for a missing combat support aircraft using a portable waterproof autonomous vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial system called “flying locator beacon” is described. The latter is connected with both flight data and cockpit voice recorders with a parallel bus and may be deployed from the empennage during extreme emergency scenarios, which is detected when few flight parameters are overrun leading to an air crash stimulating behavior. Landing of the flying locator beacon strictly takes place on global latitude and longitude coordinates only of integer values enabling significant minimization of search …

Innovative Dodecacopter Design – Bulgarian Knight, Svetoslav Zabunov, Garo Mardirossian

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The current article aims at introducing a novel dodecacopter multirotor design called Bulgarian Knight. The aircraft implements a number of innovations and characteristics that give it an advantage over other contemporary multi-copters. Some of its novel characteristics are the mounting of the rotors under the fuselage by use of pusher propellers. Further, the design implements twelve rotors positioned in an optimal geometric coverage.

Design And Optimization Of Aircraft Configuration For Minimum Drag, Zin Win Thu, Aung Myo Thu, Phyo Wai Thaw

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

This paper presents a reliable and robust optimization for minimum drag of an aircraft at the conceptual design phase. Firstly, the conceptual design code was developed and existing Single Seat Aerobatic (SSA) aircraft was chosen to validate the reliability of developed code. The resulted data from the developed code showed good agreement with the existing data. Secondly, Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) optimizer was created and employed as a tool to explore possible aircraft configurations that are more efficient and less costly than an existing design. The optimized results gave lower Drag and better performance.