Conference Proceedings

Abstract

This is a space era for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with complex autonomous systems to have an objective research on interplanetary studies. The UAV design for the space application is a complicated approach due to its involvement with initial conditions such as the atmospheric data of that particular planet and in later stages, where the experimental testing setup requires a separate infrastructure to match that atmospheric conditions. So, where the planetary data required for design are density, temperature, viscosity, pressure and gravity. These are initial conditions which affects the design and performance parameters in the conceptual stage of the planetary UAV. This paper describes the UAV conceptual design methodology for the Mars application which includes the configuration selection, sizing, aerodynamic analysis and performance evaluation using low fidelity tools such as XFLR5 and OCTAVE (Low order code). The design performance is compared with Earth atmosphere and Martian atmosphere to estimate the impact created by the initial conditions. However, the performance validation for the design on Earth atmosphere is justified in correlation with XFLR5 and wind tunnel data of Sky walker X8. But the design on Mars atmosphere is correlated with the literature available from recent research studies and observed to be fair, which would an acceptable correlation during the conceptual stage.