A Three Dimensional Iterative Panel Method for Bio-Inspired Multi-Body Wings

The continuing growth of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) use in reconnaissance and surveillance has led to an increased demand for novel flight systems that improve vehicle flight capabilities in cluttered and turbulent environments. Bio-inspired wings with feather-like flaps have been proposed to enable bird-scale UAVs to fly robustly in such environments. This paper presents the development of a three-dimensional iterative constant strength doublet Adaptive Panel Method (APM) for calculating the flight characteristics of a multi-body wing operating in any of its possible configurations. A three-dimensional wake relaxation algorithm is incorporated into the model, which enables accurate wake shapes and down-stream roll-up for each flap configuration to be derived. Wake modeling is shown to improve the accuracy of the pressure distributions induced by the wake-body interactions. The flight coefficients calculated using this method are validated by experimental values obtained from a low speed suction wind tunnel operating at a Reynolds number of 300,000. Finally, it is shown that the APM aids in determining accurate surface loads for the preliminary design process of multi-body wings.