Investigation of the Aerodynamic Characteristics of an Aerofoil Shaped Fuselage UAV Model

This paper explains the fabrication of an UAV having aerofoil shaped fuselage using NACA 4416 profile and compare the result between the aerodynamic characteristics with that of the same model obtained from CFD investigation. Open circuit subsonic wind tunnel has been used to test the fabricated UAV model and collection of data. The wind tunnel is associated with Versatile Data Acquisition System (VDAS) to measure the lift & drag force coefficients and point surface pressures. This paper explains the design parameters and investigation of the aerodynamic characteristics of the fabricated ‘Aerofoil Shaped Fuselage’ UAV model. This type of model might be used for many military and civil applications like scientific data gathering, surveillance for law enforcement & homeland security, precision agriculture, forest fire monitoring, geological survey etc. The aerodynamic characteristics of Aerofoil Shaped Fuselage UAV model have been carried out at two different Reynolds Number (1.37 x 105 and 2.74 x 105 respectively) with different angles of attack from -3o to 18o. The stalling angle of this design is found at about 14o during experimental investigation. The aerofoil shaped fuselage UAV model might be used for designing the future UAV.